


the word's been passed (this is our last chance)

by quarterdeck



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, First Kiss, First Time, Fix-It, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Introspection, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pet Names, Post-IT Chapter Two (2019), Praise Kink, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Romance, Service Top Richie Tozier, Slow Burn, Sonia Kaspbrak's A+ Parenting, Stanley Uris Lives, Supernatural Elements, The Losers Club Love Each Other (IT), The Turtle CAN Help Us (IT), but the type of slow burn where you're confident and secure in your love ur just both so dumb...., what if it was what are we going to do with this psychic turtle in eddie's pocket., what if richie and eddie's biggest problem wasn't whether or not they loved each other back.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-05 05:01:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 44,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25028920
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quarterdeck/pseuds/quarterdeck
Summary: “Uh, Spaghetti?” Richie waves a hand in front of his face, looking worried now. “Hello? Do you want to let me know whatever it was that was so important you had to drag me awake for it or -”“I have a turtle in my pocket that speaks to me in my head and is possessed by Bruce Springsteen,” Eddie blurts out. “Also I think it may be God.”Richie stares blankly at him.“What,” he asks flatly, “the fuck.”“Oragod, at least, I don’t know,” Eddie continues, “Either way, I think it was the one who brought me back to life, so. You know. The chances are very good.”--It's been forty years. Eddie Kaspbrak is just trying to make it out of the river.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris
Comments: 75
Kudos: 424





	the word's been passed (this is our last chance)

**Author's Note:**

> why does bruce springsteen sing so many songs that are either homoerotic or about a man named eddie or both of those things at once

It is 1981 and Eddie Kaspbrak is five years old when the Kenduskeag first tries to swallow him whole.

Eddie’s mother had always hated it when he’d say it like that. _The river did not try to_ swallow _you, Eddie-Bear,_ she’d scolded him, _rivers aren’t alive. You fell into the river because you’re only a small thing, too delicate to have been out on such a windy day, and you’re very, very lucky that I was there to save you._

And the thing was that on the surface, that made sense. Rivers _weren’t_ alive, obviously, and Eddie _was_ small, so it’s more than feasible that a child like him could have gotten swept into the river when he wasn’t paying attention. And how else could he have gotten out, anyway, if it wasn’t his mother that pulled him from the water? The Kenduskeag was famous for flooding every few years, Derry’s terrible drainage system and the stream’s low banks pairing together to spell out danger for anybody who got too close at the wrong moment. And for Eddie Kaspbrak, five years old and thirty pounds soaking wet, any moment would have been the wrong one. 

But it doesn’t matter that everything she’d said to him made perfect sense, or that she didn’t have any reason whatsoever to lie to him about it, or that five year olds aren’t exactly known for having perfect memories, anyway. The explanation his mother had given him struck a nerve in Eddie, somewhere deep and discordant, a square peg in the round hole of his memory. He’d never told this to her, or to anyone, but it was the first time he had ever suspected his mother of lying to him - knowing, as he did, that no matter what she said, hardly any part of what she’d told him was actually true _._

It had really gone like this: Eddie’s father had gotten very, very sick one day and could suddenly no longer play with him or take him into the workshop to tinker around. Eventually this had turned into his living at the hospital for a very long time, weeks and weeks and weeks, until one day the sickness got to be too much altogether and suddenly he wasn’t anywhere at all.

Frank Kasbrak dies on a cold October night, and on a cold October day, Eddie and his mother walk hand-in-hand through the thinning autumn forest to scatter his ashes amongst the trees. Eddie’s mommy is not happy with this trip to the dirty, wet forest, not at all, but it had been what Frank wanted, and so here they were. The walk is long and when they reach the right spot and the lid of the urn is twisted off, out into the wind flies all that is left of Eddie’s father. The two of them stand there watching the breeze rustle through creaky branches for a long, silent minute. 

“Go stand quietly over there for a second now, Eddie, while I say goodbye.” His mother finally tells him, “Don’t go anywhere and don’t touch anything. This will only take a moment, and then we’ll go home and get you all cleaned up.”

Eddie listens to his mother, walking obediently over to the dark treeline to stand quietly with his hands pressed together behind him, mindful not to touch anything that will get him into trouble later. His mother is crying now, loud, gasping sobs, body hunched over and speaking to nobody. Eddie is uncomfortable. That’s when he hears the voice.

 _Hey! Eddie!_

Eddie’s head flashes to the direction the voice comes from, mouth falling open in surprise. Only two people in the whole world are familiar enough to summon him by name, and one of them is now dead which means there’s only one person it could possibly be. And it’s sure not his mother calling to him from down below the embankment. 

The voice comes again.

 _Eddie!_

Eddie looks warily toward the dark trees, and then over to where his mother is still pressed to the ground weeping. 

“Mommy?” he tries quietly, “Mommy, there’s a -”

“Be quiet, Eddie.” His mother snaps, not even bothering to turn around. Eddie’s mouth snaps shut and he hangs his head, feet shuffling guiltily in place, trying to be as quiet and as still as possible.

 _Eddieeee_ , the friendly voice burbles, _Eddie, come play! Come play cars!_

Oh. Eddie loves cars. He always had. That’s what him and his Daddy used to play together before he got too sick and had to go live in the hospital, where there were No Hot Wheels Allowed. So maybe he could just go and take a look, really quickly, and be back before his Mommy was done. 

Glancing over to his mother who has taken no notice of anything, Eddie begins to quietly, quietly, quietly make his way toward the dark trees, following the cheerful, echoing voice through crunching red leaves and down the hill until he stands on the low bank, his feet pressing up against the side of the rushing river.

“Hello?” Eddie calls, quietly, looking around. “Hello, um. I’m here to play cars.”

 _They’re down in the river, Eddie_ , the voice tells him mournfully, _I dropped them in. I’m so, so sad. Will you get them for me? I’m not brave enough._

Brave boy. That’s what his Daddy said to him, laying there in the hospital bed. You have to be my brave boy now. Promise.

“Okay,” Eddie agrees. You’re not supposed to break promises. “I’ll be brave. I’ll look for you.” 

Leaning over to peer into the rushing water, Eddie sees a metallic glint flash at him from somewhere at the very bottom, partially covered by sand and pebbles. He leans forward carefully, sticking an arm in the cold water to try and reach it, frustrated at his short height.

He’s just about able to reach them when he feels a hard push at his back and he goes tumbling straight in, water immediately rushing through his mouth and his nose, making his throat burn. He kicks his little legs out, trying hard to reach the surface, but to no avail. Eddie wants to scream for help even if it’ll get him in trouble, but if he opens his mouth the water will fill up his lungs and his mommy already says he has bad lungs and besides that he doesn’t even know how to swim and he’s scared. 

_Just float, Eddie!_ The voice jeers. _All you have to do is float!_

I can’t! Eddie thinks, terrified. He’d be crying if he weren’t already underwater. I can’t, I can’t! The voice is laughing all around him, in every direction, and Eddie knows that it’s the river itself that is speaking to him, and that he is a small morsel in a mouth that is ready to devour him. He shakes his head from side to side desperately, keeping his burning eyes open to try and spot something that he can grab to tug himself to safety. Through the water, he can see a vague yellow glow somewhere up ahead of him, almost like two large eyes set into a dark void past where his eyes can see, and his whole body goes tumbling toward it. 

But before he reaches it, his eyes land on a dark shape moving above him in the water, near the edge of the bank, and he stretches out desperately, hands coming into direct contact and fingernails scrabbling against a hard, wet shell. All of a sudden the rushing of the water seems less overwhelming, the force of the stream gentled to a peaceful hum, and Eddie’s head cracks the surface, his breath gasping quickly in and out, and before he knows it he goes tumbling right back out of the water, landing softly and safely onto the riverbank. A small brown turtle can be seen swimming peacefully away in the opposite direction of the flow. 

_Not time, yet_ , the voice says, growing fainter now and disappointed. _Oh well. See you later, Eddie._

Eddie tries to draw himself up, but the bank is slick with mud and he can’t get a good enough grip, tumbling right back down to splatter himself and all of his neatly pressed clothes with wet earth. 

“ _EDDIE?”_ He hears his mother screaming for him now, running down the embankment towards him having finally noticed his absence. “Edward Frank Kaspbrak, you were told to stay _put_! What in the _world_ do you think you are doing, playing in the river? Do you know how dangerous that is? Do you know how dirty? Why would you scare me so bad? Why would you do that to me?” 

Gaping up at his mother, and still in shock from the whole experience, Eddie isn’t given the chance to explain, and he doesn’t know how he would begin to answer any of those questions even if she let him. Sonia rushes forward to grasp tightly enough to his upper arm to hurt, dragging him to the car where she straps him in and drives him right back home, up into his room and bundling him into bed where he will stay for the next couple of days. 

“You must _never_ go into the river again, Eddie-Bear,” His mother says to him that night as she tucks him in, hand passing softly over his hair. “Promise me. Do you see how dangerous it is to be out there on your own, without me? You’re lucky I got there in time to pull you out. You would have died if I didn’t come to find you.”

“Yes mommy.” Eddie says obediently, even though he knows that it wasn’t her that had fished him out of the water. But it’s all so confusing, and maybe she was right. Maybe he remembered wrong what had happened, in his panic and his fear. It makes more sense than anything else does.

His mother nods once, satisfied, and leaves the room. 

“I just wanted to play cars.” Eddie says quietly to himself when the door closes behind her, little fists rubbing at his burning eyes. His daddy wouldn’t have yelled at him.

He never tells anybody else about this sad, confusing sequence of events, keeping the whole terrifying ordeal tucked away in the back of his mind where he doesn’t have to think about it. But every time he has to walk by the river, and every time him and his friends bike down to the Barrens to swim in the quarry, something in the back of his head pings. He’ll think about how the voice had sounded when it told him _Not time, yet. See you later_. He will think about how the river had promised to wait for him, and he’d know somewhere deep down that it still was. 

And it’s funny, he’ll think to himself some thirty-five years later, because he had always believed that it was the river itself that had called out to him back then, that had enticed him and had lain in wait for him all these years. Even as an adult living in New York with no memory of his childhood, he had refused to step foot near one. He had never once stopped to consider that maybe it was the sewers into which the water flowed that had spread the poison, and that the thing that had sent him flying back out to safety was a creature of the river. But wasn’t that just the story of Eddie Kaspbrak’s life? Incorrect assumptions and dangerously misplaced trust. 

None of this would have been important, of course, except for that in 2016, the Kenduskeag makes good on its promise. Just not the way he’d thought. 

-🐢-

Forty year-old Eddie Kaspbrak throws himself onto the riverbank. 

Lungs burning and head spinning, he sits hunched there on his hands and knees, dripping wet and with the wet smell of earth clogging his nose, a consequence of his face’s position pressed almost directly into the ground. Gasping out short, panting breaths, and feeling more disoriented than he can ever before remember being, Eddie collapses onto his back, and wonders just how the fuck he's found himself here.

And where exactly ‘here’ was. And what the _fuck_ was happening, when the last thing that he clearly remembered were the six of them down in the cave, with Richie’s ( _big, strong_ ) hands cupping his face and saying…something to him, in a frantic sort of tone. He could hear the others shouting in the distance, too, but by that point Eddie had been too far gone to grasp the nature of the emergency or be expected to provide any sort of meaningful help. 

Richie’s upset, Eddie thinks absently, probably had something to do with the fact that his best friend’s chest had just been skewered through and he was attempting all alone to keep the wound closed and the life tucked inside with a sweatshirt and a prayer. And then: _Oh, right. That happened._ And then: _To me. That's right._

It was a wound that he had fully expected to kill him. So - had he died? 

An incredibly distressing thought. Eddie forcibly shifts it to the side for a minute, feeling unequipped to handle so many immediate concerns at once, because now that he thinks about it, that moment down there in the sewers with Richie _wasn’t_ the very last thing that he remembered, was it? There had been something else that had happened, too, something after and separate from everything down in the cave, the recollection of which is just now hovering out of his reach. Eddie may be able to feel his sequential memory slowly returning to him the longer he stays conscious, but this last bit stubbornly remains something that he can only vaguely grasp at. Something to do with...a turtle? Bright lights. Space. The persistent thought that there was something important he was meant to be remembering. 

And, Eddie furrows his brow, a record player?

 _What the fuck,_ he thinks. _What the fuck. What the fuck._

Eddie takes a moment to inhale deep, measured breaths. All of that can probably wait until later to be unpacked, at a time when he has not been freshly and traumatically thrown from the river for the second time in his life.

For now: In and out. In and out. Repetition is key, Eddie reminds himself. Repetition is good, something that holds _balance_ and _consistency_. Motions that are constant, and unchanging, that make sense. Actions that never come with any unexpected side-effects or surprises, which is exactly how Eddie likes things to stay.

Or at least that’s the hope until Eddie sits up and sticks a hand into his pocket, searching for - his phone? Anti-bacterial wipes? A paper bag? God, he doesn’t even know, but _something_ that can offer him a little peace of mind in this trying time. Instead, sticking his hands into his sweater pocket and grimacing at the wet _squelch_ this choice produces, Eddie’s fingers bump into something small and round.

When he draws his hand out, confused, he finds cupped there a small wooden turtle, intricately carved and giving off a faint heat. He sees in his mind’s eye the distant image of a river turtle swimming lazily upstream, but _this_ turtle is something that he knows for a fact he has never seen before, and certainly not something that he would have forgotten sticking into his pocket before going off to fight a killer clown with his best friends like some sort of lucky rabbit's foot. 

Despite this, there _is_ something familiar about it, something that Eddie can’t quite put a finger on.

Rolling it over in his hand to stare down at the eyes of the wooden reptile, the heat of it indisputable on his skin, Eddie’s mind is assaulted again with flashing images - _bright lights-space-turtle-a raspy, singing voice how come it’s so familiar-_ and as he’s flung out of it, the combined force of the memories and the shock nearly makes him puke.

“What the _fuck_?” Eddie says out loud, “Oh no, absolutely not. I have reached my fucking limit on magical Derry bullshit. What the _fuck_ just happened?”

Despite his anger, and given that it really was, in the end, just a small, wooden turtle, hardly even large enough to cover his palm and largely unremarkable apart from the unquestionable heat emission, Eddie had not been expecting a response to that outburst. Obviously. So fucking _sue him_ for letting out an undignified shriek when in response, a deep voice echoes around his head as if somebody had just set the needle down on an internal record player. 

♪ _Don’t worry, darlin’, no baby don’t you fret_ ♪

Eddie throws himself backwards with a gasp, hand growing unnervingly hot from his continued grasp on the turtle. “Oh no,” he says, “Oh fuck. Oh no. I said I was _done_ , I said I’ve reached my limit, I cannot handle any more magical alien bullshit, come _on_ -” 

♪ _Here stuff this in your pocket,_ the voice attempts to reassure, _It’ll look like you’re carrying a friend ♪_

“Was that _Bruce fucking Springsteen?_ ” Eddie shrieks, “Why the fuck is Bruce Springsteen’s voice _coming from a turtle_ , and also why is that happening _inside of my head_?” 

And then, after a moment of panicked compartmentalization, huffily, “Wait, Meeting Across The River? Is that supposed to be a fucking joke?”

♪ _We gotta stay cool tonight, Eddie_ , it warns him, _‘Cause man we got ourselves out on that line / And if we blow this one, / They ain’t gonna be lookin’ for just me this time_ ♪ 

“Stop responding to me!” Eddie shrieks, “What the fuck! No seriously, I didn’t ask to come back to life with a magic psychic turtle in my pocket! _I don’t want to deal with this shit!_ ” 

A deep silence follows his words, and Eddie lies there waiting apprehensively for a response that was apparently no longer forthcoming. And not that he’s a fucking expert, but the silence now seems pointed, almost surly. The strangest feeling of guilt that Eddie has ever experienced rises up in his chest, and along with it an accompanying feeling of hysteria for feeling guilt in the first place for _maybe_ hurting the feelings of a wooden child's toy. And the fact that he was even _holding_ a child's toy whose feelings it was possible to hurt. 

But fine, whatever, he’s not a monster, and he remembers what it had said about being a friend, so he goes out on a limb and takes a deep breath to continue in a more measured tone of voice. 

“Listen. Okay. Here is what is going to happen. I am going to go find my friends. And then I am going to have a fucking shower, and find a change of clothes so that I can feel human again. And _then_ we can - I will deal with whatever this bullshit is.” A beat. “Uh. Okay?”

♪ _Stay on the streets of this town /,_ the voice agrees, _and they’ll be carvin’ you up alright_ ♪

Okay great, Eddie thinks, love that for me.

Back into the pocket goes the turtle, deep into a well of repression goes his panic, and on with the next part of his plan goes Eddie. 

He rolls over to heave himself up into a sitting position and looks around to assess his surroundings. Okay, he thinks, looking at the forest around him, the familiar treeline, the rushing water of the Kenduskeag that he emerged from. So obviously still in Derry then, because God knows if he was going to get mysteriously deposited somewhere, it couldn’t be somewhere _nice._ Somewhere that wasn’t the point of origin of every single one of his various traumas. Jesus. 

But disappointing location aside, Eddie hadn’t even really needed to open his eyes, nor to conduct a questionable conversation with Bruce Springsteen in turtle form to know that he had never left his hometown. What may have been his short-lived death was not enough to kill the internal compass that had been a constant companion to Eddie throughout his life, allowing him to always unerringly guide him and his friends where they needed to go. It is this familiar propensity that gets Eddie unsteadily to his feet now and turning on his heel in what to anybody else might seem an arbitrary direction. 

So Eddie walks, and as he walks he thinks, and even under the circumstances ( _sticky, disgusting, filthy from a combination of river water / blood / leper vomit, and on top of it all possibly UN-FUCKING-DEAD_ ) he manages to find some humour in the direction that he finds his thoughts taking, the direction that his thoughts have always, unfailingly, taken.

To his friends, of course, but more specifically to Richie Tozier, like the stupid asshole that he is. 

It’s strange, he muses, to find himself confused and alone, washed up in Derry’s filthy sewer water, a long amnestic spell preceded by a vicious alien-clown battle that had apparently (maybe?) killed him. The whole thing has been a brand new experience for him. Which should go without saying, he supposes, but it’s not the alien clown, nor even the talking turtle or still questionable fact of his death that has him feeling so wrong-footed - these things have felt pretty par for the course, lately.

No, it’s the alone part that's so disconcerting.

Because the thing is that there had never really been a time in his living memory (ha) after the age of five that Eddie had gone through something difficult or scary in Derry without also being able to turn around, Richie at his six, waiting there with a sheltering arm, a gentle look, a stupid joke.

It was… sort of impressive, honestly, almost as if he had a condition, a _protect this asthmatic freak or die trying_ impulse embedded so deeply in his DNA that it had caused him to appear always at the scene of Eddie’s distress. And Eddie would sigh and tut and bandage him up in the bathroom when the situation demanded it, but he’d also think to himself _That’s my best friend_ , and it would make him warm and proud. 

So really, the strangest thing of all, and the biggest question plaguing Eddie was that if he truly _had_ died down there in the caves (assuming that the skewer wound he remembered was real, and that it had succeeded in killing him), he couldn’t quite see Richie simply leaving his body to rot, knowing as he did Eddie’s pathological fear of darkness and disease.

And, similarly, if he had only been injured, he knew that wild horses couldn’t have dragged Richie away from getting Eddie topside and to the appropriate medical attention. So to find himself washed up out here, alive after all, not dead and not even actively hurting anywhere to speak of, begged the question: how the hell _had_ he ended up here?

 _What’s a nice guy like me doing in a place like this?_ Eddie asks himself hysterically in one of Richie’s stupid Voices. 

Given that logic, the errant thought – that perhaps the only reason that Richie wasn’t there was because he _couldn’t_ be, because he – because Pennywise had –

Well. A possibility that didn’t even bear thinking about. He’d prefer to believe that the years spent apart from each other had cured Richie of that specific protective streak that made it so impossible for him to separate himself from Eddie when in distress. 

Richie had always been very particular to him. So it’s not that he isn’t worried about the other Losers - the fact that he doesn’t know where any of them are or if they’re all okay has created four chilling grips on his heart slotted neatly beside the constant aching loss of Stan. But Richie had always been gentle in a way that the rest of them weren’t. Not weak, not wilting, but never quick to harm either, nor to act in his own self-defence. _I’m a lover, not a fighter_ , he used to say wryly when Mrs. Tozier would sigh in that resigned way of hers and ask him how come he couldn’t just punch back for once, and maybe save her a trip to the optometrist?

None of them belonged down there in the caves, with the monsters and the cavernous silence and the floating fucking bodies, but Eddie knew that realistically Pennywise would only have to give Bev a sideways look for her to beat his ass in, and all you have to do to get Bill swinging is provide a dramatic enough opportunity for martyrdom. But Eddie could almost see Pennywise taking a swipe at Richie, claws sharp and endless rows of teeth on display, and Riching shrugging back _Yeah, I probably deserved that one._

To think of _Richie_ down there under those circumstances, shaking and alone, made to face some expertly curated terror, had Eddie breathing deeply to keep from vomiting. Richie could have gained some sense of self-preservation in all the years they’d been apart, sure, and it’s not like he’d been killed yet, but Eddie had never taken well to being kept away from him when he was in any kind of trouble, big or small. And this kind of trouble was the biggest around. 

Eddie’s entire body shivers, and it’s not just from the soaked clothing. 

It’s roughly ten minutes of walking later that Eddie finds himself atop the cliff that the seven of them had used to leap off of into the quarry, his thirteen year old self feral and unafraid. Strange to think that however wary he’d been of the river as a child, swimming in the quarry had never bothered him. If it all went back to the fear of being swallowed by the water, his friends had easily preempted this by not giving a shit and dragging him down by the ankle as soon as his body touched the water. Despite his protestations, Eddie’s screeching rage did a great job of distracting himself from whatever fears he may have felt, and besides that he was never down there for long before Richie was tugging him back up, skinny arm around his waist proclaiming _Avast, ye landlubbers, we’ve caught a big one!_ in some confusing amalgamation of pirate and deep-sea fisherman. 

He only plans to spare a second in his journey to stop and reminisce but Eddie’s eye is caught by a flash of colour down by his feet, just in front of the metal barrier that now blocks off their old jumping point. 

It’s a shirt. It’s _Richie’s_ shirt, the hideous mustard one that he was wearing that first night at the Jade. The sight of it abandoned carelessly there on the ground incites a range of emotions all mixed up together in Eddie’s chest: confusion (what was it doing here?), fondness (it really was an ugly shirt), relief (so he must have at least made it out of the sewers), and finally, once he notices five sets of scuffled footprints, - 

“You _assholes_ ,” Eddie says, outraged. “What the fuck? That’s fine, it’s fine that I probably literally _died_ , just work your sorrows out with a nice summertime swim in filthy water with your open fucking wounds, that’s great, glad I mean _so fucking much to you_ …” 

He’s mostly joking, except that it does hurt in some dark, secret place in his chest that he doesn’t want to examine to think that his loss could be inconsequential enough for them to brush off with some jokes and childhood reminiscences before continuing on their way. He hasn’t even stopped aching for the loss of Stan, and they never even met again as adults. 

He continues to grumble, partly to soothe the sting of those thoughts, but mostly to distract himself from the choice that he knows he is about to make. Because Richie’s shirt is - it’s hideous, yes. And it’s filthy, from cave debris, from sweat, from blood that’s probably his own. 

But it’s not filthy with all of that and soaked through with freezing river water in the end, is it. 

Eddie lets out a sigh and begins to strip off his waterlogged hoodie and shirt before he can think it through too much, transferring the Turtle into the front pocket and slipping Richie’s oversized button-up over his head, tying it tight at the front to keep it the right length. 

He doesn’t think about the dirt and grime clinging to his skin. He doesn’t think about how comforting it feels to have Richie’s scent surrounding him, even mixed up as it is with the acrid tang of sweat and blood. He just turns on his heel and tries to put as much distance as possible between himself and the water. 

-🐢-

All in all, it takes him about an hour to pick his way through the trees and navigate himself into Derry proper. For the first time in his life he lets out a sigh of relief when he finally reaches the main drag of town, starting down the street and already planning to avoid eye contact with anybody who may notice and try to talk to him in his disheveled and soaking state.

He’s so focused on staring straight ahead that he almost misses the reflection waving to him from a shop window. It isn’t until the sharp sound of a crow cawing through the trees has him reflexively flinching up and catching a movement in the corner of his eye that he spots it. And what he sees when he turns fully to face the shop window has him stopping dead in his tracks.

It’s - well, it’s himself in the window looking at him, but it’s not the him that he is now.

The Eddie that is reflected there can’t be any older than thirteen, the same age he was the first time around with Pennywise, clad in the same old running shorts and Thundercats getup. Child Eddie’s hands are gripped tight around the handles of his bike, staring calmly back at him, a small river turtle crawling around his front basket. And right behind his shoulder, a serene look on his face and just as young as his own reflection, is standing -

“ _Stanley_?” Eddie chokes out, heart seizing in his chest.

He feels a faint brushing against his shoulder, and he whirls around to look behind him, trying to find the real Stanley, the one that the shop window has to be reflecting right now, but the streets around him are empty and when he turns around again there’s nobody there except for himself, as old and as devastated as he feels right now. Eddie shoves a shaking hand into his pocket, pulling out the Turtle and shaking it close to his face.

“What was that? Was that Stan?” He demands, “Is he here, too? Can I help him?”

♪ _I saw my reflection in a window, I didn’t know my own face / Oh brother, are you going to leave me wasting away?_ ♪

“What does that mean?” Eddie begs, but receives nothing in return except for a rewinding and repetition of the same lines.

He continues to wait there for long moments, unwilling to leave when he could swear that Stan had just been _right there,_ close enough to reach out and touch. But neither of the reflections return and the Turtle doesn’t provide any more clues as to what any of that was supposed to mean. And so, reluctant and heavy, Eddie turns around again to continue to make his way toward the Townhouse. 

When it finally comes into view, he almost forgets about everything that’s been happening to him; the renewed anticipation of seeing his friends again has his heart pounding in his chest and he suddenly needs to see them so bad that he’s sprinting before even being aware that he’d sped up.

It's just like back when he was a kid, sneaking out for early morning runs, mind clear and only the heavy _thump-thump-thump_ of his heart and the rhythmic slapping of his feet as company. He finds himself at the front doors, hand outstretched and chest heaving almost without remembering how he had gotten there. 

He is just about to fling it open, and himself inside with it, when he hears raised voices from the other side.

Not knowing what to expect, and with the past few days having filled him with a healthy wariness when it comes to the unexpected, thank you very much, he slowly and quietly inches the door open.

“I said to leave me alone! No, _fuck you_ _guys._ I don’t want to fucking look at any of you right now.” 

That’s Richie’s voice, Eddie realizes with a start, and in a tone so mangled and unrecognizable that it takes him a moment to even place it.

There’s no point of comparison that could have helped him to - he’s never heard it that desolate before, and the nuance changes it so completely that it sounds like a different person entirely. Eddie’s heart aches at it, and his natural desire to make everything in the world better for his best friend at all times has him poised to spring, but now - he hesitates once again, the sound of his own name halting him in his tracks. 

Quietly, Eddie inches forward, and hidden well enough behind the doorway to escape anybody’s notice inside, peers in to see what exactly was going on. Richie is standing centre-stage, chest heaving and hair wild from tugging, the other four dispersed around him keeping a distance but twitching forward occasionally as if to reach out and touch.

“‘Eds would have loved this', are you _kidding_ me? You want to know what I think? I think Eddie would have loved to be _alive_ right now, I think he would have much preferred to be here with us where he was _safe_ , where we could – where I could –” Richie looked wild. There was no other word for it. He was wild, grief-stricken, his emotions further out of control than they’d ever been as a child, heaving in lungfuls of air quicker than could reasonably be expected to help him, and pulling at his own hair, making a terrible sort of keening noise before starting up again. “ – you made me _leave_ him down there, alone. He’s alone, he’s all by himself. You made me _leave_ him! And I don’t – I don’t fucking forgive you, any of you, you should have left me down there with him, that’s all I wanted, just to stay there with him and you couldn’t even give me fucking _that!_ ”

“Richie,” Bill tries, holding out his hands in a futile attempt at a soothing gesture, “We couldn’t leave you down there t-too. We c-couldn’t. And I know that’s — I’m sorry, I’m _so fucking sorry_ , but I d-don’t – I don’t want to see you like this.”

“Why is it about what _you_ want, Bill? Why is it always about what Big Bill fucking wants, and to hell with the rest of us? ‘Eddie could have gotten killed’ that’s what I told you years ago, when you didn’t spare a fucking thought for his safety the first time and he got his armed snapped for it. Well congratu-fucking-lations, Bill, now he has!” Richie shouts, and there is a terrible silence after he speaks again, his voice dull with eyes to match. “Eddie trusted you. Eddie _always_ trusted you and did everything he could to help you, even when it was dangerous for him. You should have tried to help me get him out of there. You fucking should have. Or you should have let me stay down there with him.”

“Eddie would never have wanted that.” Ben tries quietly as Bill turns white, looking as if he had just been slapped, and Richie now turns slowly to face him. 

“And why,” says Richie horribly, “do you think you have any fucking say in what Eddie would have wanted, when you didn’t even try to lift him out of there?” 

“Richie,” Bev whispers, “Richie, come on, that’s not fair, that’s – we all loved him. And we all want him to be with us right now.”

“But that’s not what you _said_ , Bev!” Richie shouts back, “‘Honey, he’s dead’, that’s what you said down there. If you wished he was here so bad then you should have put your money where your fucking mouth is when it _mattered_ and helped me get him out of there. Eddie wasn’t – stop acting like he was fucking _expendable_ , Eddie was never fucking expendable. I want – Stanley would have understood, Stan would never have made me do that, would never have just abandoned him down there.”

“Stan would never have l-left you down there either!” Bill tells him, face warring somewhere between compassion and anger. 

“But you know what, Billy, Stanley was real smart and I bet he would have known that it takes less effort for one person to carry Eddie than it did for four of you to drag me out of there!” Richie shouts.

Well, I was right, Eddie thinks. Both about the fact that Richie would never have willingly left him down there, and about his abysmal self-preservation.

But from what Eddie is able to gather from his friends, the stabbing from Pennywise’s claw down there had killed him after all. It’s not like they wouldn’t have checked. And despite his earlier feelings at the quarry, he could never really be upset with his friends for trying to protect Richie, to spare him the same fate - isn’t that what Eddie had been worried about earlier, Richie all alone and likely to make terrible decisions that would get him hurt?

And that's exactly what the other four are trying in vain to get through to him now, but even without this awful display of Richie burning all of his bridges, they should have known better than to think that he would ever receive it well. 

It had always made perfect sense to Richie that he should sacrifice himself for his friends if need be, throwing himself in front of the bullies and opening his trash mouth, taking on the most dangerous dares that the others were too scared to try, but never the other way around. 

There had been this one time, back when they were twelve, that Stan had tried to do the same for Richie’s sake and God knows that hadn’t ended well.

Richie had already been having an off day, quiet and withdrawn, the three of them unable to penetrate the thick wall of his misery and get him back to sorts. Bowers, sensing this moment of weakness, had followed him after school on their way home, chucking pebbles and hollering abuse at his back. The four of them had tried valiantly to ignore this and continue on their way, and that could have been the end of it except that Bowers had reached out to swipe at Richie’s glasses with a taunting _What are you gonna do about it, fairyboy?_ and Richie’s hunching shoulders and burning face had Stan whirling around to shout right back at him.

This had ended, of course, only with Stan on the ground, wheezing breaths and right eye purpling, but getting the violence out of his system in this way had been enough for Bowers, who then backed off, which Eddie personally called a success, no offence to Stan. 

_What’d you do that for?_ Richie had shouted at Stan, angry guilt marring his features, nevermind that he had done the same thing for Bill only last week when Belch had gone on a particularly vicious tirade about his _st-st-stutter_. 

Stan had simply rolled his eyes and picked himself up off of the ground, but Richie had oscillated between quiet anger and withdrawn guilt for the rest of the day, lashing out when any of them would try to talk to him. Eddie had gotten the message pretty quickly and simply sat pressed up against him silently, hoping that the contact would have a calming effect, and Richie hadn’t said anything about it but his responses had gotten less and less sharp as the hours wound on, and Bill and Stan had thrown thankful looks his way so he supposed he was doing something right.

That’s one of the main differences between Richie and Eddie. When Pennywise had drawn Eddie down into the basement of Keene’s, masquerading as his mother strapped to that chair, scarred and endangered, Eddie had made the choice to leave her. In the end, when push came to shove, Eddie hadn’t loved her enough to stay and put himself in harm’s way to protect her, even when she had cried and shook and yelled _Don’t leave me Eddie!_ All he had been able to say was _Sorry mommy!_ and he’d run. His own mother.

That’s something Richie would never have done - even if it was somebody he hated, someone terrible or cruel, Richie would have stayed there to get them out of trouble.

So while he knows that there is no way for Richie to know that he had actually survived, and while he couldn’t even imagine how he would have felt if the situations were reversed, Eddie is thankful that it’s him in this position now, able to come in and deal with the fallout of this latest disaster the right way. Because he’s got it down to a science, how you deal with Richie: don’t indulge the self-censure, but keep an eye and keep close and he’ll come back to you once he’s had time to process whatever was eating away at him. Rookie stuff.

Now is time for Step One: Don’t Indulge The Self-Censure. 

Steeling himself for the pandemonium he knows will erupt at his appearance, Eddie straightens up, heart pounding, and steps forward into the light, speaking aloud his first words to another person since his resurrection. 

“Richie.”

-🐢-

The whole world stops spinning. The Earth halts on its axis, the planets stop their revolutions, and even the birds outside cease to sing.

Or at least, that’s what it feels like to Eddie, when Richie turns and faces him for the first time, blue eyes meeting brown. 

All his life, Eddie thinks, forty years and he’s never had anybody look at him quite like Richie does in that moment. Richie had turned slowly, slower than molasses in any month, and when his eyes fell on Eddie it was like a blind man seeing the sun for the first time. Like how it feels when your best friend hands you a vanilla ice cream on a hot summer day. Like — 

Like reuniting with that one beloved person, only to have them torn away from you once again in the cruelest way possible; like if that same person was standing once more in front of you now, offering benediction and salvation and forgiveness all at once. 

Or at least, Eddie thinks opening his arms, maybe a fucking hug as a start. Sure looks like he could use one. 

The others are speaking now (“ _Eddie?” “Is that –“ “No, I thought Pennywise was –“ “Fuck, don’t let Richie-”_ ), a crescendo of voices rising and crashing over him like a tidal wave, but Eddie only has eyes for Richie, who stumbles forward as if learning to walk for the first time; jerky, halting movements.

A beat passes when he reaches him in which Richie stares at Eddie, huge and childlike, before letting out a wail as he collapses like a marionette whose strings have been cut into Eddie’s outstretched arms. The force of the drop is such that Eddie in his exhausted state can’t hold up the both of them, and the two men fold down and together like a house of cards, like two paper dolls folded together.

“Eddie,” Richie mumbles, white-knuckled grasping at his sweater, his wet face pushed against Eddie’s neck. “Eds. Eddie. Eddie.” It’s the only thing he can say, apparently, the only word left to him after the force of his earlier explosion. 

Distantly, Eddie thinks that he should probably feel bad about having not acknowledged any of the others yet, but they should know by now that taking care of a distressed Richie is his chief mandate. Has been ever since he had taken one look at a hollering six-year old bashing blindly into walls and thought _is anyone going to look after this dumbass?_ and hadn’t waited for an answer. They used to joke about it as kids, whenever Richie found himself in some sort of mood and nobody else could get through to him. 

_Uh oh,_ Bill would say, lips twitching, _Better send him off for Dr. K. to fix up,_ that stupid nickname. 

And Richie would blush at this, but he would also rally quickly, swinging around to sweep Eddie up in a pantomime of a waltz, crooning _I’m a-gonna wrap myself in paper, I’m gonna daub myself with glue! Stick some stamps on top of my head, I’m gonna mail myself to you!_ while the rest of them laughed and Eddie shoved at him, muttering about how he sounded nothing like Woody Guthrie. 

He’d always kept his smile well hidden.

God help him, but he’s got the same dumbass condition as Richie. Two peas in a pod. The circle continues. 

“What are you doing, huh?” Eddie murmurs to him now, mouth pressed into his hair. “What are you doing to yourself? You’re killin’ me, Smalls. Put away that righteous anger for just a minute and take a _breath,_ for fuck's sake.” 

This only serves to make Richie cry harder, even though Eddie had been hoping to happily surprise him by putting on a Voice.

“ _Eddie_ ,” he sobs again, and Eddie shushes him, pressing kisses into his skin, one hand up in his hair, the other spreading up and down along his back. 

“That’s enough. I’m right here,” he murmurs. “I’m safe, and you’re safe, and _neither_ of us are lying dead in a fucking sewer cave, so you can get that idea out of your head. The two of us can share a fucking - Viking funeral in fifty years if that’ll make you happy, but I’m pretty set on staying alive right now, and I’m certainly not planning to die in Derry fucking township.” He huffs out a laugh and pokes his nose teasingly into Richie’s temple, “So? Are you going to hug me back?”

Richie pushes forward to do as he’s told, fingers cutting crescents into Eddie’s skin with the force of his grip - but before he can get his arms around Eddie there are four pairs of hands pulling the two of them apart. Richie kicks out at the hands reaching for him, trying desperately to keep hold of Eddie.

“What are you doing?” Eddie demands, “He’s upset _,_ stop that –”

“Let _go_ of me, what the fuck –” 

“ _Richie_ ,” Bill says sharply, continuing to pull, “We d-don’t know if that’s really Eddie! Pennywise does this; he makes himself look like people we l-love so that we can’t f-fight him back. He did it to me with G-Georgie.”

“And to me with Bev.” Ben said quietly. 

“It’s Eddie, what the fuck do you mean we don’t know if it’s Eddie, of course it’s–”

“Eddie was dead,” Mike says shakily. “Eddie was _dead_ , we wouldn’t have just left him there if we weren’t sure that he was dead, so _let him go so we can figure this out_.”

Looking up at Mike’s shaken face, Eddie now begins to feel a little contrite. They had been close back then, he and Mike. It was so easy to get wrapped up in the all-encompassing nature of his and Richie’s dynamic that he had forgotten it wasn’t just Richie that had loved him to bits back then. They all had. 

“Mikey,” he says quietly, “It’s – it really is me. I promise.”

“Then tell me something that only Eddie would know,” Mike demands, staring at him coldly, “Something that Pennywise wouldn’t know, or - or think to tell us.”

Something Pennywise wouldn’t know? The thought is laughable - hadn’t he crept into the hidden corners of every single one of their minds, finding all of their secrets, grasping at them and pulling them into the daylight? Even the voice that had called to him from the river as a child had been eight years before Pennywise was supposed to be awake for the next cycle.

But something benign, maybe, something that wasn’t fraught with fear or able to be twisted into something it wasn’t. A memory that simply existed as it was.

“I- well give me a second.” Eddie screws up his face in deep concentration, “Uh - lambing season? At your farm, back in junior year? You used to come pick me up in your truck so I could go over to help out when I needed to get away from my mom and prove I could do something dirty, like farm work. I had a favourite lamb,” Eddie recalls fondly, “Her name was Snowball.”

“Fuck,” Richie sniffles from where the others are standing guard over him, sprawled halfway now between Eddie and the themselves. “That’s so fucking cute, what the hell.”

It _had_ been cute, Eddie remembers. And when the work was done for the day, Mike’s grandfather would bring them in for a cold drink of lemonade, and the three of them would sit out on the porch and watch the sun go down. _You doing alright, son?_ Leroy Hanlon would ask him. _You staying out of trouble?_ And Eddie would remember what Mike had told them out there in the park that day, about how his grandfather believed that the town was cursed, that there was an evil thing feeding off of the people of Derry, and he’d always be more honest in his answer than he otherwise would have been when asked this by an adult. 

Mike falters a bit at the memory, so Ben takes helm as Devil’s Advocate. “Sorry, but how do we know that Pennywise wouldn’t know that? He may have been like - _sleeping_ at the time, but it’s not like we ever knew how his memory retrieval trick worked -”

Eddie stares. “Really? Pennywise was out here throwing like, disease, and lepers and Henry Bowers at me, and you think after everything, he’d stop and he’d say to himself ‘ _Ah! But this will have nothing on my greatest trick of all - the memory of Snowball the newborn lamb.’_ ”

“Well, I’m willing to believe it’s Eddie,” Bill mutters from the background, “If not, Pennywise is doing a great impression of being a fucking dick.”

“Choke.” Eddie tells Bill cheerfully. 

“It’s _Eddie_ ,” Richie says desperately, “Come on you guys. You think we wouldn’t know Eddie? You think _I_ wouldn’t?”

Bill, Mike, Bev, and Ben share a long, deep look, communicating non-verbally between themselves in a way that had always been particular to the Losers, this time keeping Richie and Eddie well shut out. Eddie’s hands burn to reach out to Richie, but as that isn’t an option right now he instead keeps steady eye contact with the man as their four friends argue amongst themselves. The California sun has allowed him to keep his freckles, new ones blooming where Eddie doesn’t remember them being before. His jaw has grown square and handsome. Same goofy glasses. Eddie catalogues all of these things, tucking them away like precious sea-glass, safe and sound in his head.

After what seems like an eternity, Mike’s shoulders drop a fraction of an inch and it seems to have been the signal they had all been waiting for, pushing Richie ahead of themselves and rushing forward to engulf Eddie in a sweaty tangle of limbs right there on the floor. While all of them are connected at one point or another, Richie’s body is directly pressed up against his own, and Eddie passes a soothing stroke through his hair, a wordless apology for their earlier separation. 

“Eddie,” Bev sniffs finally, “What the hell? How are you back? 

_Oh_ , Eddie thinks, _a wooden reptile possessed by a rockstar plucked me straight from the jaws of death and dropped me into the disgusting river of our hometown for laughs. But since then I’ve been thriving._

“That,” Eddie says, “is sort of a long story, and no offence, but I need to have a shower and get changed before giving out any explanations or I’m going to start throwing things.”

“Yes,” Mike agrees, voice cracking. “That’s probably best.” 

They all move to get themselves up and then - 

“Wait, is that Richie’s shirt?”

-🐢-

Untangling themselves from their sweaty, albeit loving, dogpile, it is decided that they should each go back to their own rooms to calm down and clean up a bit, ready to meet back downstairs in an hour to figure out next steps. Eddie opts to follow Richie up to his room in order to use his shower and borrow some pajamas, given the bloody state of his own room coupled with a strong lack of desire to re-enter the scene of his first stabbing just yet. 

Richie is quiet as they make their way up the stairs and into the room, a state that always spells trouble brewing on the horizon. Eddie doesn’t quite know what to say; after the emotionality of their reunion it seems odd to revert straight back to their usual banter, but he’s never come surprisingly back to life after a traumatic skewering before and isn’t sure of the proper protocol in such a situation. Richie certainly doesn’t seem like he’s planning to bring any of it up himself, but still. Eddie is loath to simply let the matter lie and have the air between them hang heavy with unspoken words. 

“Rich?” Eddie asks quietly, waiting until the door closes behind them. “Are you - okay?”

Richie, who had stepped robotically toward his suitcase on entering, now pauses in the centre of the room to take a shuddering breath, hands fisted over his eyes and shoulders hunched in. He opens his mouth a few times to speak, but closes it just as quickly each time, at a complete loss.

Eddie makes a small sound of distress at the sight, stepping forward to wrap his hands around Richie’s wrists and moving them gently away from his eyes, ducking forward to try for some eye contact. 

Richie takes a shuddering breath, eyes squeezed stubbornly shut and shakes silently with the force of sobs he is trying to keep hidden, though why he should choose to hide now, after everything, Eddie doesn’t know. Nevertheless, Eddie waits patiently, thumbs stroking gently over the strained tendons of Richie’s wrists until the man shoots one quick, fleeting glance to his eyes before ducking his face down to stare at the carpet. 

“I’m so - Eddie I’m just so _mad_. And upset and scared, still, and I just - I feel so fucking backwards. I don’t know what to do right now.”

“Okay,” Eddie said quietly, “Okay, that’s fine. Let’s take it one thing at a time though, Rich. Mad at who?”

“The others!” Richie explodes, “All of them! I’m tired of them acting like _I’m_ the irrational one, like I'm crazy for feeling upset over this. They just left you down there Eddie, they didn’t even try, they didn’t even listen to me and they _made me leave you too_ , and I know you’re alive now, I know you’re here, but that doesn’t just change what happened! I wouldn’t have - I would never have left _any_ of them down there.” He looks up at Eddie, devastated and pleading. “I would never have left you. I didn’t want to.”

“Richie,” Eddie sighs, one hand coming up to direct Richie’s head down to the place where his neck meets shoulder, thanking the years of easy physicality that had characterized their friendship for the ease of this movement, and the tears still streaming from Richie’s eyes soak Eddie’s skin immediately. “You think I don’t know that, genius? Of course I know you didn’t want to leave me down there. For god’s sake, you never even used to leave me alone long enough to miss you when we were kids.” 

Eddie takes a breath, while Richie continues to shake.

“Listen, I- I can’t even imagine how that felt for you. And I can’t imagine how I would feel if it were you down there, alone in the dark. I would have - lost it. Too. And you’re allowed to be angry, Rich, you’re allowed to feel upset or mad or however you want, nobody can tell you otherwise. But speaking for me, Richie, you... you have to understand that they did what they did to keep you safe. To save your life, and I - there’s no world where I could ever be upset with them for that. I could never.”

He leans back a bit to shake at Richie’s shoulders. “Do you know how mad I’d be if the one _single_ time I wasn’t there to keep your ass out of trouble, it got you killed? _So_ pissed. I’d haunt the shit out of you, and then you’d really want to get rid of me.”

But Richie just shakes his head back and forth, face swiping across Eddie’s neck, the stubble of his jaw scratching softly across the sensitive skin of his throat, no response forthcoming. And - “Scared?” Eddie prompts quietly, hands still pushing gently through Richie’s hair. “What are you scared about?”

Richie’s movements still then, breath puffing hotly onto Eddie’s neck, taking a moment to try to find his words. 

“Just -” he starts, “What if this isn’t it? What if you’re not here, permanently, I - I feel like if I look away for a second you’ll be gone again and I’ll be -” Richie freezes then, jaw snapping shut. Not wanting to push, always easier to let Richie come to expressing his vulnerabilities on his own time, Eddie simply hums and continues to pet. Back and forth, back and forth, letting Richie droop heavier and heavier onto his neck with each passing swipe. Richie, he decides, has a pleasing heft to him. “I’m just _scared_.”

This is something that Eddie had always admired about Richie, something he had been so envious about as a child. Richie never had any trouble showing his emotions. It probably came from being raised by Maggie and Wentworth, who had always encouraged their child to not bottle up his emotions. If Richie was mad, he was lobster-red boiling, if he was happy, you’d never be able to get him quiet, if he was scared, he said so with no shame, expecting you to give him a hug. That, more than anything, was what had Eddie wishing he could be the same. There were a lot of times that Eddie would have liked to tell somebody he was scared without fear of being punished. To have just been hugged for it.

“I can’t promise anything,” Eddie tells him quietly. “And I’m not going to lie to you, I don’t have all of the information either, here. But this - it feels pretty permanent, Rich. I really do think I’m here for good. I can tell you the full story, everything I can remember later, after we get ourselves sorted but. Well, as for the disappearing act, my room still looks like a _Psycho_ remake and I’m not exactly keen on going back there to sleep so if you don’t mind reenacting one of our old sleepovers tonight -”

“Yes,” Richie says immediately, almost before Eddie has finished speaking, “I mean - yes, of course you can. Sleep in my bed - uh, room. My bedroom. This bedroom, that is.” He clears his throat, pushing his head further into Eddie’s neck, this time in an attempt to hide his heating face. “Yes, that’s fine.”

The side of Eddie’s mouth quirks up, amused, at Richie’s uncharacteristic stumbling, but he keeps his huff of laughter quiet. No good to make Richie think he was being laughed at, when really it was just that Eddie found himself so often overwhelmed with fondness for the man and had to find some way to let it out. 

“Great,” Eddie murmurs. “Well then. Find me some pajamas, and I’ll sing a song or two to let you know I’m still here while I wash all of this shit off of me. Deal?”

“Deal.” Richie says after a moment, arms tightening one last time around Eddie’s torso before they part. Richie walks over to his suitcase to dig for something to fit him, and Eddie almost thinks he’ll be able to get away without being asked about it, but - 

“My shirt?” Richie asks quietly. “I left that at the quarry.” 

Eddie hums in agreement. “I know,” he says. “I wound up there on my walk back, and when I found it on the ground with everybody’s footprints, it wasn’t as trashed as what I was already wearing, so. You know.”

Richie laughs humorlessly. “Great, isn’t it? Our friend dies and we all just go for a happy little dip in the water. That must have been a kick in the fucking teeth. I’m sorry Eddie.”

 _Don’t call me that_ , Eddie almost reflexively says, but keeps the impulse to himself at the last second, not knowing how he would explain that - it’s his fucking name. 

Back to Step One. 

“I did think that when I first saw it all,” he agrees. “But imagine how annoyed I’d be if you’d all piledrived me onto the ground downstairs _without_ having washed off first.” His eyes twinkle over at Richie, “Wouldn’t be _my_ death you’d have to worry about anymore.” 

Richie’s answering smile doesn’t reach his eyes, so Eddie sighs and reaches over to where he’s still digging through his bags and places a hand over Richie’s to cover it.

“Hey,” he says quietly, “Listen to me. I’m not mad. I’m not hurt or upset or anything else you’re thinking right now. I’m just happy to be here with you again. That’s enough for me. Okay?”

“Okay, Eddie.” Richie says, and that’s that.

-🐢-

After Eddie’s (glorious) shower, complete with Richie’s very own Kaspbrak Singing Special, ( _I hear the drums echoing tonight / But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation…_ ), Eddie steps into a pair of Richie’s old grey sweatpants, rolling the elasticized hems up to the proper length and slipping on an old _Nirvana_ t-shirt that Eddie is willing to swear is the same one Richie had worn religiously throughout their senior year. Remembering to transfer the turtle from the front pocket of Richie’s old shirt into his sweatpants for safekeeping, Eddie switches places with the man and lies on the bed lazily keeping up a running soundtrack while Richie quickly scrubs himself down, in and out of the bathroom almost before Eddie can get through his second song. 

“Ready to head down?” Eddie asks when he steps out, glancing over at Richie with his soft, frizzy curls, fresh and untamed from the shower. It makes a sharp pang shoot through Eddie’s chest. Richie suddenly looks so young standing there, bare feet and cheeks flushed from the shower’s heat, still without his goggles.

 _Pick me up,_ Eddie suddenly wants to shout, _I want you to_ _hold me, I want to fuse bodies, I want to breathe together, I want to trade freckles._ Nothing he wants to say makes any sense, but it’s an outrage that they have been kept from each other this long; Eddie wants to dig Pennywise up and kill him again, the loss of missing that final confrontation felt so keenly now. Who, in those twenty years, smoothed bandaids over Richie’s cuts? Who bought him ice-cream? Who lept onto his back, screaming like a banshee in the water? Who wrestled him into a hammock? Who made sure he slept? Was there anyone? An ugly dichotomy of feelings rises in his chest; he’ll die if there wasn’t anybody to do these things for Richie and he’ll die if anybody but him had dared to try.

Eddie doesn’t ask any of these things. There are times when answers are better left ungiven.

His own hair has started to curl up as well, but it’s not as if anybody here was going to get on him for missing part of his regular beauty regime. 

“Ready,” Richie says, crinkling eyes flashing down to Eddie’s head. “Show on the road time.”

Together the two of them step out of the room and make their way downstairs. The carpet is old and moldy, and Eddie has to resist the urge to run back inside Richie’s room to find a second pair of socks. He stays close to Richie the entire way down, cognizant of what he probably thinks are stealthy backwards glances to continually check that Eddie is still present and accounted for.

At one point he doesn’t quite look away fast enough, and their eyes catch. Richie gives him an apologetic grimace but it doesn’t bother Eddie, - who could blame him, after everything that has happened? As far as he’s concerned, Richie can spend the entire rest of his life looking over his shoulder for him. He’s going to be following behind forever, as unobtrusive as Richie likes, but something more substantial than shadow if he’s allowed.

When they reach the bottom of the stairs, they can see that the rest of their friends are all already present in the sitting room, keeping up a hushed conversation that stops abruptly at their entrance because Eddie’s friends are many things, most of them endearing and wonderful, but none of them have ever been accused of possessing the fine art of subtlety.

The next few seconds are awkward, with the Losers doing their best to avoid looking directly at Richie while also trying not to stare too obviously at Eddie. Christ.

“Still alive,” Eddie finally says, awkwardly throwing up two little jazz-hands for want of something to do to break the heavy silence. Richie huffs out a laugh and makes a beeline straight for the giant loveseat in the side of the room, patting the empty space next to him in invitation.

Eddie makes his way over there and curls up next to Richie, sticking his cold hands into the spacious pockets of his sweatpants and dropping his head backwards, the exhaustion of the past few days finally catching up with him. It takes him a moment to notice that the rest of them are now looking expectantly over at him, clearly desperate for some answers but too polite to ask. 

Letting out a sigh, Eddie lays out everything between what has happened to him after finding himself washed up on the riverbank to meeting up with all of them again at the Townhouse. After a brief moment of hesitation he even tells them about his near-drowning back in 1981, and his friend’s faces darken to realize the extent of Pennywise’s long reach even in the years he was meant to remain dormant. 

He doesn’t mention anything about the pocketed Turtle. It’s something he still doesn’t understand, but it sounds fucking crazy, and he reasons (somewhat guiltily) that he can always let them know about it later if it becomes necessary. Something in the back of his mind whispers to him that it’s best that he keep it quiet because it’s probably all in his head, after all, the consequences of all those years of both prescription and non-prescription pills finally catching up to him. It’s nothing like the voice from the river, or the basement of Keene’s, or from Neibolt; this time, it’s all himself. Somehow this is worse.

He also chooses not to mention anything about Stan. Nothing came of it after all, and in light of not knowing whether or not it was all imagined, it feels too cruel to be kept as anything but a private hurt, metastasizing in his own chest but kept from touching his friends. He can protect them from that, if nothing else.

He lets them all sit and digest this. Eddie’s head _thunks_ back down next to Richie’s.

“Well. Hey,” Mike says suddenly, after a few moments of contemplative silence. “I just wanted to thank you guys. For coming out here when you could have just ignored my calls. And Eddie, even though it - You guys didn’t even remember me and I - I appreciate it more than you know. I’ve missed all of you so much and it’s just. So good. To have you all back here with me. It’s been hard. So just… thanks, I guess.” Mike ducks his head after this, as if unsure of the reaction he’ll receive.

Eddie’s fingers brush against heat in his pocket. ♪ _There are things that’ll knock you down that you don’t even see coming, /_ the Turtle agrees, _And send you crawling like a baby back home_ ♪

“Mikey,” Bill murmurs, reaching out to grab tightly at his hand, “Of course we came. Losers s-stick together.”

The rest of them nod their agreement, and send their own little murmurs over to Mike, even Richie. Eddie thinks suddenly about how Mike had been the only one Richie hadn’t lashed out at back there, when he had first come in to the Townhouse. The only one to escape his burning rage and stinging accusations. After all Mike had given up for all of them, he supposed it made sense. None of this was Mike’s fault, after all. Difficult to be mad at him. Playing the role of sentinel doesn’t make you responsible for the crisis that inevitably comes, even when you’re the one to sound the alarm. 

Eddie thinks, not for the first time, that they will never be able to repay Mike for those twenty-two years.

“So what now?” Bill says when all of their murmurs have died down again. “Where do we go from here?”

Mike lets out a sigh, “I think we need to contact Stan’s wife at some point. Patricia. I don’t know what exactly we would say, or if she’d even believe anything we _do_ say but - it doesn’t feel right, knowing what we know, and never giving her that closure. They seemed like they really loved each other. Just really - happy. I think we owe her that much.”

 _It doesn’t feel right,_ Eddie repeats mentally, _knowing what we know and never giving that closure_. He almost reconsiders his earlier choice to stay quiet on the reflection in the shop window, but what does that do in the end? Where is the line between providing closure and simply inflicting more wounds?

But the rest of them nod in agreement, packing the still-painful thought away for a later time, so Eddie bites his tongue again as Bill directs his earlier question outward once more. “And? Everybody else?”

Eddie tenses at the question, hoping for anybody else to bite the bullet first and give him a moment to collect his thoughts. 

Ben looks over at Bev, who sighs, twisting her hand around a wrist in an unconscious stress response. “Well I’m - _I’m_ not going back home. I won’t. My husband - ex-husband, soon I guess he - when I forgot all of this I just gravitated toward what I knew, clinging on to some sense of familiarity for a reason I couldn’t even figure out. And Tom, he’s... he’s just like my father. So.” She looks down at her lap. “That’s that. No plans, unless you count figuring out how to sever those ties without getting anywhere near the bastard.”

The meaning behind her words hits them all at once in a collective wave of grief for her and all that she’s had to go through, all mixed up with the constant underlying anger that they were kept from being there for her for so long, for all of them. To keep each other safe all of these long years like they had used to.

“We wouldn’t let him get anywhere near you, Ringwald,” Richie says fiercely, “You hear me? He even thinks about getting close to you and we’ll be on his ass. It’s all of us now, just like before.” 

Bev looks up startled at Richie’s pronouncement, gratitude and relief shining from her face. She seems strengthened by the knowledge that whatever still lay between Richie and the rest of them for what had happened down in the caves, it wasn’t enough to sever the iron-strong bonds that bound them close and kept them tethered. 

“Me too,” Eddie says quietly now, not wanting to leave Bev alone in exposing her belly to the rest of them, however safe it was to do so. “Myra she - she’s just like my mom was. Exactly the same, you all remember. And she’s not - I can’t live like that, anymore. I won’t. It would kill me, I think. It almost has before. And I’d also - I’d appreciate it if somebody could take care of the pills in the bags in my room. All of them just - need to go. Please.”

“Done.” Bill says instantly, while Richie swoops an arm around Eddie to pull him tightly toward his chest. Eddie melts against him with a sigh, and gradually the adrenaline that had flooded his chest while talking about his marriage dies down in the knowledge that he couldn’t possibly be anywhere safer. Mike sends a gentle look over to him, a silent promise of support to Eddie, and a solemn look of understanding passes between himself and Bev, identical to ones they used to share as kids.

“Thanks Billy,” Eddie says quietly. “So. There you are. My plans are just about the same.”

Richie shifts minutely, similarly buoyed by Eddie’s bravery, and clears his throat to speak next. “Well I have nowhere to be,” he says. “I’ve already missed my Reno dates, and even if I hadn’t I think it’s about time I burn it all down and start from scratch anyway. Fire the ghostwriters and - maybe start to write my own material. Speak my truth. You know. My manager will kill me but. Eh.” 

He shrugs and takes a deep breath, staring straight up at the ceiling now, clearly psyching himself up for whatever was coming next. Eddie lays a hand on his arm. 

“Pennywise, you know he. He’d always taunt me about the same thing. My _dirty little secret_ , he called it. And before I came back here I couldn’t figure out what it was that made me put on a mask and lie to myself and everyone else for so long. Why I let so many other people be my voice and write my words, but it was him. It was always him, his voice in my head and this _fucking_ town. So,” he takes another breath, still looking intently at the ceiling. “I’m - I’m gay. That’s - that’s what he had on me, all this time. But I don’t -” his voice breaks. “I don’t want that to scare me anymore. It’s not fucking fair.” 

Eddie’s heart stutters in his chest at the revelation. It makes a certain amount of sense, in retrospect - all of those terrible jokes as overcompensation, those times when some asshole or another would yell a certain word and Richie would go quiet.

He thinks about the seven of them after the first fight with Pennywise, grimy and exhausted, walking their bikes down Kansas Street. They were all quiet, lost in their thoughts and just wanting to get home, until the sound of Richie’s barking laughter startled them from their thoughts.

 _What?_ Stan had asked incredulously, _What could possibly be funny right now?_

And Richie had tried to gasp out between heaves of laughter, _Remember what Bowers said to Bill? Last day of school? ‘This summer’s gonna be a hurt train for you and your faggot friends.’ Well, looks like he was right on all counts folks!_ And he had laughed, and laughed, and laughed until Bill had turned at him, looking upset when he said _R-Richie,_ and suddenly it wasn’t laughter anymore, and Eddie had gently taken his arm to wait it out and lead him home.

Another part of him perks up at the confession for a far more selfish reason, but that part he viciously shuts down.

“Richie,” Eddie murmurs sadly now, their earlier positions now reversed with Eddie’s face tucked up all cosy against Richie’s neck, and he knocks his head gently against his jawline. _That’s what he had on me_. As if it were a crime. “Of course you shouldn’t have to be scared. I - We all love you, Trashmouth. Of course.”

“We sure do.” Ben confirms, and Bill dares to walk over and smack a kiss to the centre of Richie’s forehead before moving back to sit with Mike on the sofa. “If anything I’m relieved to hear that half of the shit you used to spout back when we were kids wasn’t true. Not that any of it made any anatomical sense anyway, but you know. Still.”

The rest of them laugh, and Richie throws a grin over to him, receptive to the gentle ribbing but clearly still too overcome to respond at the moment. His arm tightens around Eddie in silent thanks as well, a quiet “Thanks, Spaghetti”, and Eddie lets that be enough of a comfort to him. 

Bill sighs, bringing their attention back over to him. “Well my situation isn’t exactly the same as you guys b-but. Between the six of us, I really don’t see my marriage hanging in there much longer. Things - weren’t exactly g-great before all of this, and I’m definitely to blame for most of it, but I’m sure flying off to Maine without explanation only s-sealed the deal, so.” He shrugs. “I’ll have to go back eventually - she’s not a bad person and it wouldn’t be f-fair of me to just disappear without a word. And I still have to do _something_ about the ending the movie execs want from me but. Yeah. Not exactly b-booked up myself.”

This consensus is echoed by Mike and Ben, the former of whom only needs to pack up his meager belongings before nothing is tying him to the land here anymore, and the latter of whom has been something of a directionless wanderer for some time anyway. A comfortable silence falls over the group, and after a while Eddie starts to properly doze off against Richie’s chest. 

“So,” Richie says quietly, considerate of Eddie’s sleepy state, but with a familiar and much-missed tone of mischief underlying his next words, “Family road trip, anyone?”

-🐢-

Agreeing to iron out the details in the morning and with the exhaustion of the past two days now properly weighing down on the six of them, they each bid each other goodnight, fond kisses smacked all around, and shuffle off to their respective rooms, or, in Eddie’s case, up to Richie’s.

When the two of them reach the door, letting it give a gentle _snick_ shut behind them, Richie immediately lets out a groan, walking over to throw himself face first down onto the bed. Fucking typical. Eddie rolls his eyes and crawls on to the bed himself, shoving Richie over with a huff. 

“ _Richie._ Move over you big lump,” Eddie says. “Some of us want to get some sleep as well, you know. God knows _why_ , but I’m feeling a little bit tired myself.”

Richie snorts, but shuffles over obediently and cracks an eye open to look at Eddie teasingly, “Really? Tired _still_? What, you didn’t get enough sleep on my manly, sculpted chest earlier?”

Eddie's face flares up with the force of his blush.

“Sculpted, my _ass_ ,” is all he mutters.

“Oh, I just bet it is,” Richie mumbles, “but for you, ‘sghetti, I’ll move. I don’t care where I’m at so long as I can finally _sleep_.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes, snuggling up closer to the centre of warmth that was Richie’s sprawling body and tries his very hardest not to think about the aforementioned chest. _Big_ , he thinks, failing immediately, _hairy._

When he goes to stretch out his legs, however, the forgotten object in his pocket presses painfully between his thigh and the mattress, and he suddenly feels the strongest urge to have Richie on the same page as him about everything.

Well - almost everything. He won’t say anything about his fixation on Richie’s chest, because he wishes to take that to the grave, and he won’t say anything about Stan because that’s already where he is. His eyes shoot open before Richie can fall asleep, and he throws an arm out to shake frantically at the arm nearest him.

“Richie!” Eddie whisper-shouts, conscious of the thin walls separating this room from the rest of their friends. “Richie, _wake up_ , I forgot. There’s something I need to tell you.”

Richie lets out a long groan, his eyes remaining shut tight. “ _Spaghetti_ ,” he begs, “Please. Please, if you care about me at all, if there is any justice in this world, you will let me go to sleep right now.” 

Eddie continues to look imploringly at him, silently waiting him out, and finally Richie cracks an eye open to look over at him, huffing out a self-deprecating laugh at what he finds.

“Fuckin' _eyes_ ,” he mutters. Letting out a groan and heaving himself up into a sitting position, he shakes his head in an attempt to dissipate any lingering sleepiness and looks at Eddie, “Alright, Bambi. You win. I’m listening.”

Richie sits there, patiently looking at Eddie, waiting for an explanation that is no longer forthcoming. Because now that he’s here he has… no idea what to say? How to _possibly_ explain the thing in his pocket, the voice in his head. All of his earlier fears come to the forefront of his mind once again and Eddie’s mouth opens and shuts again more than once, never letting out even a hint of a noise. 

“Uh, Spaghetti?” Richie waves a hand in front of his face, looking worried now. “Hello? Do you want to let me know whatever it was that was so important you had to drag me awake for it or -”

“I have a turtle in my pocket that speaks to me in my head and is possessed by Bruce Springsteen,” Eddie blurts out. “Also I think it may be God.”

Richie stares blankly at him.

“What,” he asks flatly, “the fuck.”

“Or _a_ god, at least, I don’t know,” Eddie continues, “Either way I think it was the one who brought me back to life, so. You know. The chances are very good.”

“Woah, woah, woah, okay. Okay, I’m gonna need you to like, slow down and back up _so far_ , cowboy,” Richie says, scrubbing a hand over his face, “Please. Start from the beginning. Preferably explain how Bruce Springsteen fits in here.”

Eddie squirms, reaching a hand into his pocket and placing the small wooden turtle onto the centre of his palm to present to Richie. “Okay so. What I told the others, about how I washed up in the river, that was true. _But._ Also when I woke up, _this_ was in my pocket and uh. Sometimes when I hold it and I think about something, it like, _responds_ to me? In my head? But only through Bruce Springsteen lyrics.” Eddie grumbles, “I don’t know why. It’s fucking annoying trying to decipher it.”

Richie searches Eddie’s face for a long moment before suddenly bursting into long peals of laughter, his eyes crinkling up and his overbite on proud display. “I’m sorry Spaghetti, I know this is technically something that’s happening to you, but no joke, this is the best thing that has ever happened to _me_.”

“You - wait, you believe me?” Eddie says in a small voice, ever amazed at how quickly Richie is able to internalize and accept even the most ridiculous sounding bullshit, “You don’t think I’m - crazy or something?”

“Eddie baby, I think you’re crazy _and_ I believe you,” Richie says sincerely. “Both of those things are unchanging facts of life. Not mutually exclusive.” At this, Eddie lets out a sigh of relief, his shoulders dropping the tension he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, though he does make sure to throw Richie a dirty look for the qualifier.

“But,” Richie continues, “Can I ask - why you didn’t mention this to the others before? Like, is it because you were worried they wouldn’t believe you, or -”

“It just - it sounds so _stupid_ , okay, I know how ridiculous it sounds.” Eddie sighs, “And I guess I figured, well. You know. Something stupid, something ridiculous. Might as well tell you. And you’ve never not believed me about something before, not when it was important. I should have told you about the river, back when I was small. I don’t know why I didn’t.” 

Richie searches his face for a long moment. Eddie worries that what he’s seeing there is more than he’d meant to communicate, that Richie can hear the desperation underlying ‘ _you've never not believed me before_ ’ that he was trying so hard to hide. But - 

“Fair enough,” Richie agrees, letting him off of the hook. “You know me. Always here for the stupid.”

♪ _Oh yes, I’ve had the days,_ the Turtle supplies, _To grow used to your foolish ways_ ♪ 

Eddie splutters out a strangled sound in recognition of the song and Richie’s eyes light up.

“What? Did he say something?” He asks eagerly. “Something about me?”

“He agreed that you’re stupid.” Eddie says quickly.

“Come on, Eddie, what _soooong -_ ”

♪ _And what is it really, after all,_ the Turtle continues on, in a croon, _my lover man?_ ♪

“Doesn’t matter!” Eddie says, ignoring Richie’s pout, “Listen, I just. Wanted to let you know. Not just because you’re dumb, though you are,” he says, shooting a furtive glance at Richie, “but also because. I trust you. The most. So.”

“Eds,” Richie coos, hands coming up to pinch at his cheeks.

“Ugh, _goodnight_ ,” Eddie says, throwing himself back down on the mattress. Richie follows suit after a moment, curling up closer to Eddie than he had been before, daring to stretch an arm over him to pull him close like when they were young. 

“Goodnight, Eds.” Richie says softly. And just when Eddie thinks he’ll be allowed to go to sleep - 

“Goodnight, Turtle Bruce.” Richie says, and (♪ _Goodnight, it’s all right, Jane_ ♪, the Turtle answers) Eddie shoves at him once again, falling asleep with a smile on his face and the sound of Richie’s laughter still echoing in his ears.

-🐢-

Reconvening downstairs with the others after breakfast, a brief discussion is held after which it is decided that they will all travel together to New York to pack up Eddie’s life, and figure out the rest from there, all spread out in Mike’s truck and another rental.

A therapist may call it codependency, Eddie thinks, but that was just too bad. This is his family, and they had only just gotten each other back, not to mention the unmentioned but obvious fact that they don’t yet know whether the amnesia magic is broken and don’t intend to separate long enough to risk finding out.

They’re allowed a little codependency. They probably even need it, to a degree. It’s clear in the way that Ben’s body stays gravitationally attuned towards Bev, how Mike and Bill are constantly grasping wrists, knocking foreheads, how Richie and Eddie can’t get further than a foot from the other without feeling the distance like a lance through the chest. And a thousand other interactions, between the six of them, in endless configurations. 

This decision is only strengthened by Eddie’s tight grip on the Turtle while they iron out the details, hitting him with a ♪ _Don’t turn me home again, / I just can’t face myself alone again_ ♪ which Eddie decides to take for what it is.

“Hey,” Bill says quietly, walking up to Eddie while everyone else returns to their rooms to pack up their belongings and Mike heads out to grab the rest of his own belongings to load up in his truck, Richie tagging along to follow up on something he won’t explain. “I got your bags all ready for you last night. No need to go back up there. Pills are all gone.” 

“Oh. Thank you Billy,” Eddie says, overcome. He’d been dreading the return to his room, and to the uncertainty of whether or not he’d give in to the medications again, taking the pills just to stop the headache he can already feel starting from cutting himself off from all of them cold turkey. “Really. You didn’t have to do all that.”

“God. Don’t thank me,” Bill shakes his head, “I wish I could have been there for you this whole time. Wish we could have _all_ been there, keeping each other safe. It’s really the least I could do. Thank you for letting me.”

Eddie hums at that, letting it wash over him for a second, the brand-new-old feeling of his friends wanting to keep him safe in the right way. Not like his mother, and not like Myra. Letting him set his own limits because they trust his knowledge of himself, but stepping in to protect him when he needs them to because they love him enough for that too.

The two of them sit in a comfortable silence, waiting for their friends to finish up. The Turtle has been burning a hole in his pocket all day, but Eddie ignores it, still feeling a little too flayed-open from last night to revisit folk-rock turtle prophecy just yet. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Bev and Ben tromp down the stairs, at the exact same moment that Richie and Mike re-enter through the front doors. 

“Hey,” Richie calls softly, noting his perturbed expression and walking over to throw an arm around Eddie instinctively, drawing him close. “ You doing okay?”

“Yeah,” Eddie smiles, looking up at Richie. “Doing great.” 

“Nothing more from our reptilian friend this morning?” Richie murmurs, ducking his head so that his words can go unheard by the others. Eddie lets out a snort, shaking his head. It’s not a lie - he hasn’t checked, which technically means the turtle has had nothing to say.

“Nah. But I’ll let you know if he has any other comments to make on your intelligence at any point. I know that’s what you’re getting at.”

“Still haven’t told me what song he chose to do it,” Richie points out quietly, mouth quirked up. “But I’ll get it out of you eventually, Spaghetti Man, mark my words.” 

The two of them continue to grin at each other, pleased by their little inside joke, until Ben lets out a little cough by the front doors, holding up a small carry-on bag and giving it a little shake while the other three look on in amusement. “You guys, uh. Ready to go?” he asks, and Richie and Eddie step forward, Richie giving Ben a flick on the head as they pass by. 

Stepping into the parking lot, and shielding his eyes against the September sun, Eddie feels a heaviness in the pit of his stomach that he thought would have dissipated along with the clown down in the sewers. But maybe it’s just Derry. The town must have absorbed so much of Pennywise's dark influence over the centuries that even it’s death couldn’t shake it.

And the rest of his friends seem fine, so Eddie shakes off the thought. 

“Aux cord is mine!” Richie calls as he flings himself into the car that will take himself, Bev, and Eddie to New York, ignoring the boos sent his way, while Mike, Bill, and Ben climb smugly into Mike’s truck, false expressions of sympathy directed towards Richie’s victims through the window. 

Richie backs out of the parking lot, and as they make their way through town Eddie doesn’t even need the Turtle to know which song would be playing right now if he were to stick his hand in his pocket.

“Take a good look around,” Eddie mumbles absently, head pressed tiredly against the window, “This is your hometown.”

“Oh is that Springsteen?” Bev asks, brow furrowed, “I loved that album.”

Still fiddling with his Spotify, Richie sits silent for a moment, turning a mischievous look at Eddie and turning to Bev. “ _Great_ idea Eddie. Bev, how are we Born today?” 

Bev stares at him blankly.

“To Run,” Richie clarifies, “or In The USA?”

Eddie rolls his eyes as they argue it over, but sticks a hand in his pocket just to check. 

Turns out he was wrong.

♪ _Who’ll be the last to die for a mistake?_ the Turtle says urgently, _whose blood will spill? Whose heart will break?_ ♪ 

Eddie shudders, an icy shiver running down his spine. The only mistake was failing to kill Pennywise back in 1989, he tells it. But he’s finally leaving. He’s leaving, and this time none of them are ever coming back. Quiet down, he thinks. Go to sleep or something. It’s all fine. We’re getting out of here.

♪ _There’s a joke here somewhere,_ the Turtle says ruefully, _and it’s on me_ ♪

\- 🐢-

Hours pass and night falls as they continue to drive. Bev nearly starts to doze off in the back while Eddie bops his head tiredly from side to side and sings along tunelessly to Richie’s music. Born to Run does eventually come on to Richie’s great joy, and Eddie wonders if he’s thinking about the same thing Eddie is, of how they used to talk as they got older with increasing frequency about how soon they’d make it out of Derry together. And Richie would play this song over and over and over and over, on his walkman, on Maggie’s old record player, in his old beat-up car to remind them, until the day came that the name _Richie_ didn’t even mean anything to Eddie anymore and he couldn’t listen to this song without inexplicably crying.

“Hey,” Richie says suddenly, “I’ve been thinking -”

“Don’t hurt yourself.” Bev mumbles sleepily, and Eddie lets out a snort.

“Very funny,” Richie says, “Really Ringwald, take my job, why don’t you. _Anyway._ What I was going to say was that - well. I have a big house, back in California. Enough room for anybody who wants to stay. And uh. That the invitation is open to you guys, after we’re done in New York. And to anybody else as well, obviously. But you two are the current suckers in my car, so. Yeah. Only if you want to. Just thought I’d offer.” 

Richie clearly feels awkward at extending the invitation, braced for a rejection that he should know by now wouldn’t come from any of them. 

But Bev just beams at Richie through the rear-view window. “Actually Rich, that would be so nice. Thank you.” 

Eddie hums his agreement. “Obviously, Rich,” he murmurs, “Stop stressing over stupid shit. We’ll all happily leech off of you, dude. I’ll check in with the rest of them.”

Richie ducks his head, reddening a bit with a tiny, pleased smile curling up at the corner of his mouth as Eddie brings out his phone to open up the Losers Club groupchat made earlier that morning.

**Eddie**

hey richie wants to know if any of you want to stay at his place after we’re done here

bev and i will be 

obviously the rest of you are welcome too

richie’s apparently got a huge fuck-off mansion so 

Bev lets out a giggle at the notification.

“What?” Richie demands, side-eyeing his hooked-up phone to catch a glimpse of the screen, “What are you saying about my house?”

“Eyes on the road, dumbass!” Eddie shrieks, swiping Richie’s phone so that the screen faces away from, ignoring the pout.

**Ben**

I’d like that. Tell Richie thanks :)

**Bill**

My place is an option as well

Audra has another house that I assume she’ll be wanting to go back to instead, so. 

Shouldn’t be too far from Richie’s.

**Eddie**

oh okay

i assume mikey will be staying with you, then?

**Bill**

I don’t know? One second, I’ll ask.

“Oblivious.” Bev murmurs, and Richie whines even more dramatically about being left out of the conversation, or at least he does until Eddie puts a hand down on his leg to still him, and he falls quiet.

**Bill**

Yeah he said he’ll stay at mine :)

“Oh, _does_ he?” Eddie mutters, rolling his eyes. “What a surprise.”

**Eddie**

👍

“Alright,” Eddie says to Richie, locking his phone and placing it down into a cupholder between them, “You’ve got Bev, Ben, and me. Mike will stay at Bill’s place.”

Richie beams at this, thrilled by the prospect of a full house. “Party _house_!” he cheers, “Great choice, guys. Like, _god_. Can you imagine rooming with Bill and Mike? The conspiracy boards. The philosophical discussions. The sheer dumbassery.”

“You know, I get the feeling that they’re probably saying the same thing about us in Mike’s truck.” Eddie says, and Richie spreads his hands in a silent _perhaps so_.

“Who cares,” Bev dismisses, “Richie’s right anyway. I prefer the know thy enemy approach I’ll get with you two together in one house.” She leans forward to chuck Eddie under the chin. “Party house! Party house!”

Eddie glances over to see Bev and Richie both staring at him expectantly. He lets out a deep sigh. 

“Party house.” he confirms, to loud, raucous cheers. The noise makes his head throb, and he winces, holding up a hand to it. Bev and Richie’s laughter cuts off abruptly, both of them looking at him in sudden concern. 

“You alright, Eds?” Bev asks worriedly. “Headache?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says. “It’s uh - I was on a lot of medications before. And when Bill threw them all out for me I sort of quit them all at once, so. Just been feeling it a bit, that’s all.” Richie’s face turns disquieted, and Eddie hastens to reassure. “It’s no big deal! I just have to wait it out. I didn’t need any of them anyway, it’s fine.”

“Eds,” Bev says carefully, “I understand the urgency, but it’s not good to just quit so many medications so suddenly like that. You’re meant to be gradually weaned off of them. Maybe you should see a d-”

“No.” Eddie cuts her off. “No doctors. No hospitals. I’m fine, it’s just a headache. I think I’ll live.”

Richie doesn’t say anything, which is just as well since Eddie can hear everything he’d be saying right now anyway.

-🐢-

The family road trip goes swimmingly. Bev and Eddie may complain about being held hostage by Richie’s choice of music, and Ben may let out a curse and white-knuckle grip the grab handles on the roof when it’s Bill’s turn to drive, but all in all it’s a much-needed experience that none of them would trade for anything in the world, peaceful and enjoyable. They stop at a motel for the night once they arrive in New York, piling together in one big room to get some rest before they’ll set out for Eddie’s in the morning.

The reunion between Myra and Eddie does not go as well. 

Which, Eddie hadn’t expected it to be an _easy_ conversation _,_ exactly. But neither did he anticipate the shit hitting the fan to quite the extent that it did. 

It starts like this: Eddie, Bev, and Richie pull up to Eddie’s place, waiting in the car in a tense silence for Mike’s truck to catch up and park alongside them. Once it does, Eddie takes a deep breath and, turning to Bev and Richie, nods once to indicate that he’s ready to go. The six of them gather together outside the house, lobbying ideas back and forth, trying to figure out how they want to go about this. Myra isn’t due home from work yet, so they still have a bit of time, but Eddie would rather get this over with as soon as possible. 

Eddie sighs. “I mean, it honestly seems a bit excessive for all six of us to go in there. I don’t want to make it look like we’re trying to gang up on her or anything when she gets back. It feels kind of… mean?”

Richie snorts while Bev looks darkly at their front windows. “If she’s anything like your mom, I’d rather all of us go in there no matter _how_ it looks,” she says. “You’d do the same for me if it were my husband, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I would,” Eddie protests, “but Myra’s not like… I mean. It’s not like she’s ever hurt me.”

And that was true. Myra had never threatened him violently, never hit him or made him feel unsafe in any sort of physical sense. Her brand of poison was taken straight from the book of Sonia Kaspbrak, lies, manipulation, and the careful sowing of seeds.

“Abuse isn’t always hitting somebody, Eddie.” Ben says quietly, “Hurting doesn’t have to be physical.” 

“And your mom at least… she _was_ abusing you, Eds.” Richie says, gently but serious as the grave for once. “All those years. So whatever the situation is, we’re here, and we’ll be here until you’ve gotten all of your stuff and we’re ready to go.” He places a hand to spread out against Eddie’s back, solid and warm. Steadying.

Eddie is just about to cave and usher them all inside to get it over with, when his gaze is caught by a pinprick red shape in the distance. It’s - a balloon. Flying over his house. It’s a floating red fucking balloon.

 _Where you going, Eds?_ a voice whispers in his ear. _If you lived here, you’d be home by now._

Eddie’s frozen like a deer in headlights, a rabbit in bikelights, a Richie in deadlights. The balloon continues to float along up into the sky, but it doesn’t seem to be getting any smaller, which - balloons aren’t supposed to act like that. He needs to - he needs to tell his friends what he sees, he needs to warn them. His lips part to do so but that’s when a car pulls up, wheels screeching against the asphalt.

It’s Myra’s car. She’s home early.

“ _Eddie?_ ” he hears from that direction, and the car door slams. “Eddie, what is this? Who are these people?”

Eddie looks back towards the sky, but the balloon has gone. As the sound comes rushing back into his ears, he can hear down the street the distant sounds of a kid’s backyard birthday party, and he’s annoyed with himself for letting something so benign get to him like that. Christ.

He’s limp with relief, almost forgetting the new problem that has just pulled up, but when he turns his head again, she’s right there and he freezes up instinctively, losing for a moment where he is and what they are all here to do. Richie’s hand presses more firmly into his back, and the feeling shakes him from his daze. 

“Myra,” he responds, “I’m - I’m just here to get my stuff. It’s not - I’m sorry I left without explaining anything. I should have called but. Neither of us are happy and I think it’s - I’m here because I want to get a divorce.”

At the word _divorce_ , Myra freezes, the confusion and faux-concern that had graced her face before now replaced with a cold blankness. Flicking her eyes from Eddie’s determined stance, to Richie’s hand still resting along his back, to the four others standing around Eddie, Myra visibly attempts to centre herself, taking a deep breath before starting forward. 

“Don’t be ridiculous, Eddie,” she dismisses. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Now tell these people to leave, please, and we can go inside to talk about all of this. Have you taken your medications today?”

“These are my friends,” Eddie said softly. “and I’m not going to tell them to leave. They’re just here to help me get my stuff, and then we’ll all leave you alone. You’re- I’m not trying to kick you out or make you leave, or anything like that. I just want to get my stuff.”

Myra lets out a high-pitched laugh, and shakes her head disbelievingly. “Well they’re certainly not coming into _my_ house.”

“It’s my house, too.” Eddie says quietly.

Myra looks at Eddie for a long moment before letting out a sigh and walking closer to the group, getting ready to pass them on her way to the front door. The Losers instinctively tense as she gets closer, and Eddie can almost feel them preparing to stand formation around him. He’s reminded of how they had stood around him back when they were kids and they had just come stumbling out of the Well House, him with his arm snapped and his mother thundering forward to sweep him into the car and take him away from his friends, and how they hadn’t been able to do a damn thing about it. Eddie very suddenly wants for Mike to pick him up and put him into the front basket of his bike to take him far away from here.

“Eddie,” Myra sighs, right in front of him now, “You’re not making any sense. You can’t divorce me, because you’re frail and you’re _sick_ , and if you do, there won’t be anybody left to look after you. And you need looking after.”

She studies him for a moment, observing the way her words have him hunching into himself. “You haven’t taken your meds yet today, have you? Where’s your inhaler?”

“Why the f-fuck is she so insistent on those pills?” Eddie can hear Bill mutter to Mike, and it takes a minute for the implication of those words to hit him given how mud-bogged his brain feels, to realize what it is that Bill suspects. The thought makes him cold, but there’s surely no weight to it - his mother had been giving him sugar pills. Just placebos. He would have noticed if Myra had been plying him with something chemical, something that made him docile and obedient. Wouldn’t he?

Suddenly he doesn’t know, can’t differentiate between the dull and washed-out Eddie that existed because he had forgotten everyone he had loved and everything that had made him brave, and an Eddie that was muted and docile because pharmaceuticals had been helping him along the way. A lot of things begin to take on a sinister new meaning. The red balloon. The Turtle in his pocket. Stan in the window. Had any of it really happened? How much of it was just in his head? He hasn’t felt this thrown off kilter and unable to trust his own surroundings since the summer of 1989. 

Do sugar pills give you headaches?

 _Do you see now how dangerous it is to be out there on your own, without me?_ Eddie can hear his mom saying, _You’re lucky I got there in time to pull you out of the river. You would have died if I didn’t come to find you._

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie hears Richie say from behind him, noticing the way that Myra looks pointedly toward where his and Eddie’s bodies connect when pronouncing him sick.

It makes him angry to think that Myra may have the power to hurt Richie like that, even unknowingly, and the scene in front of him turns surreal: Myra is standing in front of him, looking at where his and Richie’s bodies’ touch and telling him _you’re sick, Eddie_ , Bowers is swiping the glasses off of Richie’s face _What are you gonna do about it, fairyboy?,_ Sonia Kaspbrak is gripping Eddie’s wrist and telling him that if he’s not careful he’s going to get AIDS off of a telephone pole same as that man down in New York, the leper is limping along behind him down Neibolt street _Do you think this will help me Eddie? I’ll do it for a dime._

Eddie wants to scream out loud, he wants to cry, but what his instincts are telling him most of all is to get Richie far away from here. He didn’t know, back then, that during all of those incidents and so many others like them Richie must have been hurting for a completely different and deeper reason than any of the rest of them, nursing his secret pain and hoping that nobody would look too closely at him and begin to suspect. Eddie hadn’t known to protect him. He can’t protect Richie from something that he doesn’t know hurts him, but the difference is that he does know now, and his duty of care to Richie has grown to encompass it. 

Stupid as it may sound, this is what almost makes him fold to her. 

It’s less that he’s hardwired after all these years to accept such diagnoses as truth, though that certainly plays a part, but that hanging his head and obediently following Myra inside would be the quickest way to get her away from where she can hurt Richie and the rest of his friends. Hadn’t it always worked that way with his mother? Bev and Richie standing at his porch after walking him home one night, Sonia appearing at the screen door. _Come inside, Eddie. Who knows what you could have caught running around with the likes of them_. And they never said anything about it, but Richie and Bev’s face’s had both twisted minutely for two very different reasons, and Eddie knew that if he just listens to her and gets it so that they’re safely on the other side of the door from her, they won’t need to hear it anymore.

He’s not like the rest of them. He was robbed of the chance to deal a killing blow to Pennywise, and he feels like with that was taken his ability to overcome the blockades of his life that had grown to exist around him. His foot is poised to go. He’s ready to snap the invisible tether that connects Richie’s hand to his back, but then his own hand brushes against the Turtle in his pocket and it slams into his head, words reverberating through his skull with a new urgency. 

♪ _Together we could break this trap!_ /, it tells him, _We’ll run ‘til we drop, baby, we’ll never go back_ ♪

His heart beats. His heart beats. His heart beats.

♪ _Lying out there like a killer in the sun, /_ it tries next, _Hey, I know it’s late, but we can make it if we run._ ♪ 

and something inside of him finally snaps, something that has been waiting nearly forty years to see the light. Whether it’s the Turtle, or in order to preempt whatever comment he knows is forthcoming from Richie (and, he’s sure, from Bev shortly after), or Bill’s suspicions, or the mention of the inhaler that’s the final straw, he doesn’t know. But whatever the reason, it is far past time for him to say all of this. 

“I am not _sick!_ ” Eddie shouts at his mother, at Myra, at Pennywise, body nearly vibrating with the force of his anger, the injustice of it all these years. “I am not _sick,_ and I am not _frail,_ or _weak_ , or anything else you and my mother have tried to make me think that I am! I’m - I’m strong, and I’m _brave_ , and I’m healthy, and I don’t need you or anybody else to look after me, because I can look after myself! And yes I _can_ divorce you, because I am a grown adult who can make my own decisions, and aside from all of that I’m _gay!_ ” 

_Everybody_ freezes at this outburst, and if Eddie’s body weren’t so flooded with adrenaline, he may have spared a moment to worry over it. As it is, Myra’s face looks as if it has been carved from stone, and it’s a long while before she seems to come to a decision within herself and speak again.

“I am going to stay at my sister’s tonight,” Myra says coldly, every word clear and concise, ensuring that each one is understood well. “And when I get back, I expect this to be out of your system.”

Myra stalks past the six of them, entering the house, and they all wait in a frozen silence as Eddie breathes heavily, unable to catch his breath enough to breathe properly.

Moments pass, and moments pass, until finally Myra comes back out of the house, suitcase pulled behind her. She stops in front of Eddie before she heads back to her car.

“I don’t know why you had to do this to me again, Eddie,” she tells him, mouth pulled to the side in disappointment. _Edward Frank Kaspbrak, you were told to stay put!_ _Why would you scare me so bad? Why would you do that to me?_ “But it’s okay. You’ll come to your senses, like you do every time, and I’ll be here waiting for you when you do. It’s how you are. I forgive that. You’re just not built to take care of yourself.” 

When it becomes clear that a response from Eddie isn’t forthcoming, Myra simply sighs and walks past the group, never acknowledging the rest of them, getting in her car to drive back the way she came. 

It’s silent as everybody tries to digest the scene they have just witnessed. He’s sure that with all of their old memories back in their heads, it feels just as much like deja-vu to them as it does now to him. Eddie is still breathing heavy, and Mike makes an aborted movement towards him before pulling back, unsure of whether or not his touch would be welcome.

“Eds?” Richie asks quietly, whose hand has not once left the small of his back, “Are you okay?”

It’s the question that finally does it. The stress and trauma and fear and relief of this entire week floods Eddie’s system all at once, and it’s his turn now to burst into tears, throwing himself down onto the grass to fold his knees up like a child and bury his head in his arms. His body shakes with the force of his sobs, and he feels all of his friends gather around him in an instant, a mirror image to how they were positioned back at the Townhouse when he had first come back. He fervently hopes this is a tradition they grow away from.

He spares a second to think with a tinge of dark humour about how glad Stan must be that he’s missing all of this, touch averse as he typically was. Eddie wishes Stan was here to hug anyway. 

“Eddie, you _did_ it,” Bev says, pressing her forehead into his temple from where she kneels to this right, “It’s over. You did it. I am so fucking proud of you.” Eddie lets out a watery laugh. Her words, more than anything right now, are precious to him - Bev understands the cost of cutting and running, understands that it was never just Myra he had been yelling at.

“Yeah Eds, you kicked ass.” Richie confirms, a silly grin bursting across his face even through his concern, palms pressed tight to Eddie’s cheeks, thunking his forehead down to rest against Eddie’s. “God damn. Gotta hire you as my personal security.”

“You’re not important enough for personal security.” Eddie mumbles back, because it’s better than saying _what, finally thinking of paying me for a job I’ve been doing my whole life?_ Better to remind him of his B-list status as if he hadn’t just blown up every bad thing in his life only because it had the slightest potential of hurting Richie. You’re not important enough for personal security, only important enough for me to make sure that nobody ever gets to hurt you, that nothing comes close enough to you to create the need for a locked door between us for your own safety again. What’s that called?

Richie just laughs joyfully, and shrugs a shoulder in complete agreement rather than give voice to any of this. Damn. Maybe he does deserve to know at least a little bit of the part he played here.

“Together we could break this trap.” Eddie mumbles to Richie through his tears, trusting that he will get the reference. He does, eyes flicking down to where the Turtle rests in Eddie’s pocket, and letting out a surprised but happy laugh. Something tells Eddie that it will no longer feel like heart failure when that song comes on the radio.

“We’ll run ‘til we drop, baby,” he murmurs back. “We’ll never go back.”

“I never know what they’re talking about,” Eddie hears Mike say fondly from his left, and Richie lets out a snort, pulling Eddie up by his hands and smacking a kiss to his forehead.

Bill and Ben crowd in to have their turn giving him a squeeze before moving away, Bill leaning back with hands on his shoulders to study Eddie’s face, remembering his earlier speculations, probably looking for bloodshot eyes, twitchy muscles, dilated pupils, sallow skin. _Need me to pee in a bottle for you, Bill?_ Edde thinks uncharitably, pulling away and putting his back to his oldest friend.

But it’s not Bill’s fault, he reminds himself. Big Bill wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he wasn’t acting the big brother to everyone around him and unconsciously stepping on toes along the way. This dynamic is only heightened with the two of them, and it’s a game of roulette to pick your favourite reason why. The two of them had known each other the longest, Bill had been the object of Eddie’s hero-worship in his formative years and had never stopped trying to live up to that even when Eddie grew out of that and simply knew him as one of his best friends, Georgie had gone missing and Bill had needed somebody to latch on to to sublimate his fraternal instincts, Eddie was small and Bill was Big Bill.

Either way, if he’s feeling uncomfortable with the scrutiny, it’s not anyone’s fault but Eddie’s own, in the end. 

“Alright,” Richie says, rubbing his hands together and getting that look in his eyes like he was preparing to exceed expectations. “Lay on, MacDuff and damned be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’, etcetera etcetera.”

  
  


-🐢-

It’s mid-afternoon now, and Eddie, Bill, and Bev are alone in his house, organizing whatever papers are deemed important enough and starting to pack up the few boxes that Eddie will be taking with him to Los Angeles.

The other three have been sent out to prowl the neighbourhood in search of sustenance for the six of them, because it’s been hours and Richie can’t sit still long enough to be any sort of material help and besides that seemed deeply uncomfortable to be in the house. On the fifth incident of Richie complaining that he should either be allowed to eat a horse or should be taken out back and shot like one, Ben and Mike had been selected as his chosen handlers which is just as well since the two of them have the mildest dispositions, but Mike is willing to poke back at Richie where Ben may just let him run rampant.

So that leaves Bill, Bev, and Eddie to finish up and make sure that they have him packed and out of the house before the clock strikes twelve on Eddie’s deadline to work this ridiculousness out of his system.

Eddie appreciates this. He suddenly can’t imagine doing this alone, not without double and triple and quadruple guessing himself out of it, and he shudders to imagine what would have happened if he _had_ insisted on going in anchorless like he almost had. If Myra would have simply closed and locked that door between them and the last week would fade from his mind like a summer dream.

Thankfully, Eddie is pulled from these grim thoughts when across the room, Bev picks up a framed picture she finds of Eddie and a great, big, goofy-looking sheepdog.

“Eddie!” Bev says, while Bill crawls over to hang on to her shoulder curiously and take a look. “You never told us you had a dog!”

Eddie looks over and lets out a snort. “Are you kidding me? With my mom? No, that was a neighbour’s. I used to dogsit for them when they’d go on vacation. His name was Patch.”

“ _Patch_ ,” Bill says lovingly, “F-fuck. That’s cute. Also hilarious to imagine you dogsitting. What was that like?”

“First of all, fuck you William, you already knew I handled the lambs at Mike’s and that’s fucking disgusting. But it was...nice, actually. I mean, don’t get me wrong, he was big. And like… loud and dirty. Sort of sweet, though. And he was _obsessed_ with me. It always sucked when the owners came back home and I'd have to give him back. I’d always wanted a dog.” Eddie finishes longingly, and Bev and Bill share an uncomfortably loaded look behind his back while Eddie continues to throw things into boxes, seemingly unaware of the great revelation this description has caused his best friends. 

_I’m not going to say it_ , Bill communicates frantically.

 _You fucking coward, one of us has to._ Bev argues back. 

_But why does it always have to be me?_ Bill whines with his eyes.

 _You’ve known him longest!_ Bev throws her hands up in the air. _Didn’t you raise him better than this?_

“Sort of like if Richie were a dog, honestly.” Eddie finishes. He turns toward his two friends and raises an eyebrow pointedly. “You two are not fucking subtle.” Bev blows a kiss over to him while Bill looks slightly abashed.

“I do love our mental trauma-bond,” Bev says, in a cheerful sort of tone, unashamed at having been caught. “It’s so much simpler when you guys know exactly what I’m thinking.”

Bill makes a face at this. “I’m not sure I l-love the idea of sharing a brain with you guys. I love all of you, but some things can be kept p-private, maybe.” 

“Oh, you mean like how you blush when Mi –”

“Listen,” Eddie says, steering the conversation away to spare Bill, confused as he is and likely always will be. “it’s not that I’m - _unaware_ of my feelings for Richie. I’ve been obsessed with that moron since diapers, it’s sort of embarrassing honestly. So let’s not fool ourselves by pretending that being in love with him is something that’s _new_ to me, or to any of you for that matter.”

How could it be new to any of them? Eddie has never made it a secret. Initially this was because he had tried but was, like his friends, entirely unversed in the fine art of subtlety, unable to reign in all of the emotions running rampant in his tiny young body, and now because he was simply too tired to keep it up. He’s died. He’s left his hometown. He’s left his wife. And Richie had only gotten _more_ of himself as he had gotten older, kindness so apparent, jokes more refined, bone structure so fucking square and body mass so fucking _big._

What was he supposed to do with that? If Richie can’t see it that suits him fine, and if he does, Eddie is willing to let the chips fall where they may. 

“Right,” Bev says delicately. “And you know… you know that Richie…”

“Is probably stupid in love with me too?” Eddie asks wryly, “Yes Bev, I sort of got that impression back at the Townhouse, thanks. What was it that clued you in?”

“Yeah,” Bill says, “He wasn’t exactly being subtle.”

With great effort Eddie restrains himself from pointing out the irony in this statement. Bill Denbrough. King of subtlety. 

“So, are you going to do anything about it?” Bev asks, chin resting in her hands and eyes bright, the very portrait of a gossiping teenager. She’s excited, clearly preparing to matchmake two of her best friends, or as close as you can get with two people who have done everything but acknowledge the fact of their feelings to one another. 

“Uh, nothing.” Eddie says. “Ball’s in his court. Just because you’re in love with somebody doesn’t always mean you want to do anything about that. He’s got a lot going on. And - I mean. Look at me. Not exactly a catch for a fucking celebrity.”

He’d impressed himself by refusing to look up tabloid articles on Richie Tozier, Trashmouth of the comedy circuit, once they’d met back up and he’d realized who his best friend was, but he can only imagine the type of perfect people he is used to coming on to him on a daily basis. All Eddie has to offer are wrinkles, scars, and a possible unaddressed reliance on prescription medicine.

And a psychic turtle.

“Are you kidding me?” Bev demands, outraged on his behalf. “First of all, Eddie, you’re fucking hot. Second of all, the most tragic thing about you is that for some reason you’ve always thought that Richie was like… actually cool, and not just ironically instead of an unmitigated nerdy disaster. An unmitigated _closeted_ nerdy disaster. It’s just like how you all used to think that _Bill_ was cool back when we were kids,” she says scornfully, “I never understood it.” 

Bill scowls at her.

“And that’s why the two of us worked so well together,” she adds, “I never took him seriously.”

“Ouch,” Bill says dryly, and Bev flashes him a smile. Eddie rolls his eyes.

“So no, I'm not going to address it, but I’m also not over here repressed and pining like some sort of – who’s that asshole, the guy uh – you know, the one from… I want to say Pride and Prejudice?" 

Bill stares at him. “Mr. Darcy? You’re talking about Mr. Darcy.” 

“Yeah, that’s fair,” Bev agrees. “Richie is more of the repressed and pining type anyway, I’ve always thought. A romantic. You’re definitely an Elizabeth.”

“Right, exactly. So I’m not –”

“Who forgets _Mr. Darcy,_ that’s English 101. Have you ever taken an English class, Eddie? Have you read a book?”

“Sorry that not all of us can be Mike and circle-jerk it with you about classic literature, Billy.” Eddie says to Bill, no longer committed to sparing his dignity as Bev cackles behind him. “See it’s just that Richie and I have always shared just the one braincell between the two of us, and Bev smoked all of hers out years ago, but we could give it a try for you if that would make you feel more comfortable. I _have_ read a book in my lifetime. Maybe even two.” 

Bill heaves a tremendous sigh and tries in vain to preempt the spectacle he can already sense coming. “Please don’t. That’s - I don’t think that’s necessary and it’s not even wanted, at all actually.”

But Eddie was already off, spinning around the room in a dramatic twirl, gesturing to the now-empty walls around him and the dour mood that seems to cling to them. “ _God_ , I’m so glad we’re going to stay with Richie. This is all just too Kafkaesque, don’t you think, Bev?” 

“It’s downright Orwellian, is what it is.” Bev answers back with a straight face, but through a mouth clearly only just holding barely holding back screaming laughter. 

“Okay I get it, now can you guys seriously-” Bill tries, but Eddie cuts him off.

“Oh, I’m _sorry_ , Billy, is this not _Shakespearean_ enough for you? You want me to recite some fucking Macbeth, would that be better?” 

“You literally only remember that one because Richie mentioned it earlier -”

“That kind of judgement can make a person feel positively Dickensian, you know.” Bev says solemnly. Bill mouths the words _positively dickensian_ to himself, before bravely rallying again with a, 

“That’s not even- the thing is that you guys don’t even _know_ what you’re s-” 

“Stop acting so Machiavellian about it Bill, we can’t all be on the list of New York Times Bestselling Authors or what-the-fuck-ever, stop being so fucking anal about everything-”

“FREUDIAN!” Bev screams, and Eddie can no longer hold it in, collapsing in a laughing pile onto Bev, who swoops an arm out to catch him, cackling gleefully. It takes awhile for them to calm down, and when they do, Bill is still complaining and Bev turns her head to Eddie, reaching up to knock their heads together. 

“Hey,” she murmurs, “Look at us. We really saved ourselves, huh? After all this time.” 

Pressed up against Bev’s forehead, Eddie feels an overwhelming surge of love flow through his whole body for her. Him and Bev, two sides of the same coin. Two little kids who had to fight tooth and nail every single day just to wake to see the sunrise. And they’re here now, together, the two of them, nobody to monitor their every move and keep them under an iron fist of control. 

“Yeah Bev,” Eddie responds, “We sure did.”

“Proud of us.” she murmurs.

Laying there on the ground together contentedly, the two of them ignore Bill’s ongoing complaints until both feel a buzzing in their pockets. Pulling out his phone, Eddie opens the Losers Club groupchat to see that Bill had filmed the entire spectacle on his phone and sent it along to all of their friends in search of some pity.

“Fucking coward!” Eddie calls over to him, to which Bill sticks up a middle finger.

**Bill**

[IMG_0831.MOV] 

Using my precious free time to help my friend move across the country and this is the kind of thanks I get. 

Do we think this a hate crime, yes or no.

**Mike**

Being an author isn’t an identity no matter how many of your movies get adapted, so gonna have to go with a no on this one, bud. 

"Oh damn," Bev whispers to Eddie. "He hit him with the 'bud'."

**Ben**

Aw it was a little mean of them, but not hateful.

**Bill**

Oh very diplomatic Ben. 

**Richie**

it was time big bill. somebody had to give that ego a knock 

feels like i can't even breathe when im in the room with it tbh who else!!

bev and eddie rights!!!!

**Bill**

See this betrayal hurts, actually, because I know for a fact that you know exactly what each and every single one of those terms mean Richie 

**Richie**

sorry bill eddie and bev made some points i’m dumb now 

ur now speaking to himbo richie 

cant even read whatever ur response will be sorry 

**Eddie**

If you wanted us to play nice, then you shouldn’t have left the three biggest jackasses together 

**Richie**

spaghetti!! looking cute 

new shirt? 

Eddie glances down at himself and groans, remembering too late that he had changed into Richie’s pilfered Nirvana shirt to get through packing comfortably. Fucking Bill. He could have changed out of it before Richie got back.

**Mike**

Jesus Christ 

**Bill**

Can we focus on the topic here please?

**Bev**

damn sorry bill, forgot we were here about you and you only 

richie you need to see this picture of the dog eddie used to babysit!! you’ve got a twin 🤩

**Bill**

😍 Patch….

**Bev**

patch!!! ✊

**Richie**

so fucking excited to see patch

im not even there & i already know we have so much in common

im also a dog

for eddie 🐶

The blush that Eddie had just gotten under control flares up once more, and Bill throws him a knowing look from across the room while Bev knocks her head playfully against his. His phone buzzes three times in quick succession. 

**Mike**

Oh no we didn’t know that at all

**Ben**

ya

**Bill**

Yes Richie, we all know that you’re Eddie’s bitch. 

**Richie**

damn bill no need to act so fucking 

…

………..

………………..

draconian

**Bill**

Oh I deeply hate you. 

**Eddie**

All of you shut the fuck up 

I appreciate your support keeping Bill in check, thank you Richie.

If not us, who? If not now, when?

**Richie**

there’s my little monster! 💖

Even through text, it was unmistakably fond. Eddie simply responds, 

**Eddie**

Bring me back some pizza 

please 

🍕

“Alright guys,” Eddie sighs as he heaves himself up to sitting once more, “Let’s finish up here so we can get back on the road. I want to be in California yesterday.”

-🐢-

Forty years, an alien space clown, six helpings of hometown trauma, and a whole lot of love later, and they were all in California, and they were _together_. Eddie almost can’t believe it, pinching himself to make sure it hasn’t been a dream after all.

Back when they were kids - not yet Lucky Seven, just Richie, Bill, Stan, and Eddie - the four of them had had this game where they’d talk endlessly about where they’d all live together one day once they’d left Derry, each idea getting increasingly more ridiculous as the game went on. It all started back in 1983 when Richie had found some of Wentworth’s old _Omni_ magazines and had gone through his infamous long-lasting and obsessive science-fiction phase. There was a specific article on rockets in one issue that had particularly entranced Richie, and it had become almost impossible from that point to get him to talk about anything else for months.

They were all sitting in Went and Maggie’s backyard one day, sometimes making an attempt at kicking a soccer ball around but mostly laying around, beaten by the July heat. Laying there in a star formation, heads connected and staring at the sky, Richie had started it.

 _Someday when I’m an astronaut, I’m going to be up there_ , he’d said confidently, pointing at some indiscriminate point in the sky. _Living on Saturn, dancing on the rings, yessiree._

Stan had snorted. _By yourself? You’d never even make it there; you’d get distracted halfway and wind up crash-landing on Mars. And then you’d get eaten by Martians._

Richie had rolled his eyes. _Obviously not by myself, Stan the Man. I’ll take all of you guys with me. Can’t run a rocketship all by my lonesome. You can each have a job!_

 _L-like what?_ Bill had asked, brow furrowed.

 _Well Eddie will be the pilot, obviously, so we end up in the right place,_ Richie had begun to list easily, _Stan, you can be captain since you’re so bossy. Big Bill and I will be pyrotechnics and engineering. Easy peasy. We could all live up there together. No school and no chores!_

And it grew from there. Running away from the Bowers Gang into the forest and ducking behind some bushes. _We should just live in a giant bird’s nest_ , Stan would say, _good luck finding us there._ Dunking each other into the water of the quarry, _We could live underwater,_ Bill would shout, laughing, _like Atlantis!_ The others were eventually brought into the fold as well, idea upon idea piling up and fuelling them when it often seemed like they’d be stuck in Derry forever.

All of this to say, Eddie thinks, that what they ended up with after all of this time was better than any of that.

They’d gotten to California just as the sun was going down, bleeding onto everything under it, casting the world in a hazy golden glow. Eddie’s mother would have had a conniption if she knew he’d end up here someday, the land of ‘no-good hippies and vagabonds’. 

♪ _Mama always told me not to look into the sights of the sun_ , the Turtle agrees. _Oh, but Mama, that’s where the fun is_ ♪ 

_I was blinded, I was blinded, I was blinded,_ Eddie thinks, finishing the lyric in his head. 

So two days worth of driving and they’ve reached their final destination late at night, arriving together in front of Richie’s house. They’d kept up the same driving arrangements most of the way, except for a brief switch-up in which Ben rode with Richie and Eddie, needful of a break from Bill’s reckless driving. This turned out to be a much bigger mistake, as all Bev did as the new passenger was egg Bill on, and so Mike made the executive decision to send everybody back to their original positions, sorry to Ben. 

Surprisingly, Richie’s house turns out to be a relatively modest two-story building, painted a soft cream colour and with a yard that looks lovingly tended-to. The man himself tries to look casual as they pile out of the vehicles, leaning against Mike’s truck with his arms crossed and looking on nervously, waiting for them to pass their judgement on his place of living. 

“Thought you said Richie had a great big fuck-off mansion,” Bill comments, “This is pretty nice, actually.”

“You said I had a _what?_ ” Richie demands, turning to Eddie with a hand pressed to his chest as if shot, “Do I _look_ like the kind of asshole who lives in a huge douche-bag mansion in the Hollywood Hills?”

Eddie shrugs, unrepentant. “You look like the kind of asshole who lives in Oscar the Grouch’s trashcan. I was being generous.”

“Brat,” Richie says fondly, “Well then, that’s it. You’re no longer welcome in my home. You can go walk your sleeping bag to Bill and Mike’s now.”

“No,” Eddie pouts, “I want to live in the p-” and he snaps his mouth shut, as Richie and Bev mime distress and _SAY NOTHING!_ from behind Bill’s back. 

“The what?” Bill asks suspiciously, “What was that you were going to say, Eddie?”

“The… the uhhh,” Eddie tries, stalling as he attempts to come up with a viable excuse, “The… pretty good house. Because your house will be so great. So Richie will just have the pretty good house. Because he sucks.”

Bev and Richie had now started to pump their fists up in the air unbeknownst to Bill, mouthing _PARTY HOUSE! PARTY HOUSE!_ Ben shakes his head and Mike looks on in amusement, though to his credit he does make an effort at looking offended for Bill’s sake.

“You’re full of shit,” Bill mutters, stalking past the lot of them, “I _k-know_ you’re full of shit. We’re so unfair to Richie, when really it’s you that t-talks the most bullshit.” 

“Oh, go write a book about it, Bill,” Eddie snarks, following him to the front door. They continue to bicker at one another, making their way up the front steps. 

“Oh that’s fine,” Richie calls from where he still rests against Mike’s truck, “Just enter my home. Don’t mind me.”

“Thanks!” Eddie calls back brightly, “Come in anytime you want!”

“Oh, well as long as I have your _permission_.” Richie grumbles, running forward and catching Eddie up in a scoop before he’s able to pass the threshold, slinging him under his arm like a football as he shrieks. Ignoring this, Richie waves the rest of them inside, starting the tour while Eddie hisses like a cat, attempting to wiggle his way out of Richie’s grip.

“So, through here are the kitchen and living room,” Richie says, standing in the entrance hall and flapping a hand toward an open-concept layout, “bathroom, backdoor, etcetera. Upstairs are all the bedrooms and more bathrooms.” Eddie at this point had gotten into a better position with which to scale up Richie’s back like a spider monkey, somewhat ruining the effect of Richie’s concluding little bow, and he shrugs awkwardly. “Uh. Ta-da.”

Eddie, planted mulishly on Richie’s shoulders, isn’t listening, chin slumped down to rest on top of his head. He is instead taking a personal moment to come to terms with recent events.

 _Strong_ , he thinks faintly, _strong_ , _strong arms._

“It’s really nice, Rich,” Ben tells him warmly while everyone starts to look around, and Eddie feels a rush of love toward his friend who can clearly tell how important all of their opinions are to Richie - probably Ben’s more than anyone else’s, as the architect. Which isn’t an interior decorator but still, Eddie thinks. Houses. “Seriously, you have a beautiful home.”

“Aw, Haystack,” Richie says, ducking his head, king of redirection. “You stop that, now.”

Ben rolls his eyes, moving forward to drop his bag and rest on the couch, Bev following to curl up next to him. 

“Anybody want something to drink?” Richie asks, grabbing on to Eddie’s shins and heading toward the kitchen. Mike, however, stifles a yawn behind his hand, feeling the effects of having been designated driver nearly the entire trip, certainly after everyone else had vetoed Bill, and Bill catches the movement.

“I think it’s about time we head out, actually,” he says reluctantly. “I know I only live ten minutes away tops, but I think we’d be asleep on the road otherwise. And Mike wants to call Patty tonight before going to sleep.” 

And that’s right. The six of them had called Patty Blum Uris, gathered all together in their motel room back in New York. They’d disagreed initially on what they should tell her, but like Mike had said back in the Townhouse, it didn’t feel fair to keep anything from her, knowing what they did and knowing they were the only ones who could give her any sense of closure.

It had been a long conversation, halting and difficult at parts, and none of them knew how Patty would react but at the end of it, she’d simply fallen silent. 

_Stan always said there were people out there that he knew he loved,_ Patty told them eventually, voice wavering. _And that he just needed to remember them. I need - some time to think about all of this. But please don’t be strangers. Call any time._

And since then, they’d tried to talk to her at least once a day, to check in and to trade stories about Stan. Richie and her had connected instantly - the first time any of them heard her laugh was when Richie dubbed her Patty-cakes, officially initiating her into the group, and Richie had grinned bright and happy at the sound. 

It seems to hit them all at once now, the realization that this will be the first time they will all be apart since meeting back up in Derry, and the mood sinks along with it. But if even the ten minutes to Bill’s house feels like too much, Eddie supposes they had better get it out of the way sooner rather than later. They can’t live fused together as six for the rest of their lives, after all, however much they may want to right now. Ben and Bev heave themselves up to portion out their hugs and kisses goodbye, and Eddie slides off of Richie’s shoulders to land softly on the ground. 

“Nooo,” Riche says, sticking his fingers out toward Eddie and rubbing his fingers together in a beckoning gesture. “Pspspspspsps. Come back.”

Eddie scowls, making as if to bite at Richie’s fingers before giving it up and launching himself forward at Mike and Bill. They catch him from each side, squeezing him tight.

It feels nice. Twenty-two lonely years and the theft of his memories had caused Eddie to think that he simply wasn’t the type of person to enjoy physical affection. He had never hugged anyone much, and even a handshake had the potential to turn uncomfortable fast, his fears of germs and exposure an instant foreclosure to any easy familiarity. The most contact he’d had, sad as it was to think, must have been from the countless visits to the doctor over the years. But clinical prodding from surgical gloves are no substitute for a loving touch, and Eddie is beginning to think that he should be looking into the signs and symptoms of a particularly severe case of touch-starvation. 

But he hadn’t always been like that, had he? Now that he can remember all of his childhood, he marvels at how the seven of them had always been all over each other, pushing hands, shoving kicks, piggyback rides through the woods and hand-holding on clifftops. He’d always cared _so much_ about his friends, his chest fit to burst on a daily basis, and touch was such an easy way to convey it. He’d revelled in the physicality, back then, and now he’s slowly relearning how it feels, touch that can be kind. 

“Thank you guys,” he mumbles, head squished into the space between their faces, “For the help. And everything else. I love you.”

“Love you too, Eds,” Mike murmurs, and Bill presses a kiss to his hair. They untangle themselves, and Eddie drifts back to Richie who throws an arm over him as Bill and Mike slip their shoes on and throw one last wave to the group.

When the door shuts behind them a gloomy silence falls, the four of them recalibrating with two of their (almost, but never again) full set now gone. 

“Party house.” Richie tries weakly. Bev hits him with a sad little fistbump, and Eddie and Ben roll their eyes and head out to grab their bags.

“Okay Trashmouth,” Ben says when they get back inside, “Show us to our rooms. I’m about ready to collapse.”

Richie leads them upstairs obediently, pointing out his bedroom along with three other guest rooms on the same floor. He is intentionally vague as to who should go where, affecting a casual handwave in order to let Bev and Ben choose how they want to go forward that night, a mindlessly thoughtful act that has Eddie warming.

He gives them all the typical host spiel: his house is theirs, help themselves to anything they want in the morning, wake him up if they need anything, etcetera. Eddie claims the room closest to Richie’s own, ignoring the implications of this choice, and throws his bags onto the bed childishly. A discontentment falls over him as he stands there, and he doesn’t quite know why, though he suspects it has more than something to do with his most recent sleeping arrangements.

 _Get back in the car,_ he thinks senselessly, _sleeping where I could catch you from the corner of my eye wasn’t so bad, even if the seat gave my neck hell in the end._

He stands there staring at the bed in silence for so long that it startles him to hear a throat clearing behind him, and he whirls around to see Richie leaning against the doorway, pajama-clad.

“Just came to say goodnight, Spaghetti.” he says softly, eyes wide and vulnerable without his glasses on. Eddie worries about him making it back to his room in one piece, even if it is just across the hall, but then Eddie Kaspbrak worries about a lot of things.

If touching that handrail will give him tetanus, if an unexpected storm will catch him without a rain slicker, if one more dinner with Myra now works out to three more pills later. If Richie is happy right now standing in front of him; if Richie was happy at thirteen years old, fighting him for the hammock; if Richie was happy all of those long, long years without him. If it’s selfish to correlate Richie’s happiness to Eddie’s presence, even only in his head. 

Seeing to it that Richie makes it back to his room safe and sound is the most he can do to address any of this. So inadequate. 

“Oh,” Eddie responds, “Well - goodnight, then. And thank you, Rich. For letting me stay here with you. I know it probably wasn’t what you had planned after all this.”

Richie huffs out a laugh. “You kidding me, Eds? I’m not sure what type of glitz and glamour you thought my life was before all of this, but it was nowhere near whatever you’re imagining, let me tell you.”

“So what was it like, then?” Eddie can’t help but ask.

“Lots of quiet,” Richie says finally, “Lots of drinking. A whole lotta lonely.”

 _Nobody to bandage your cuts,_ Eddie thinks, knowing now what he would have preferred, _Nobody to make sure you slept._

“You?” Eddie says instead of these things, tone light. “With all those Voices up there? How does it ever get quiet enough for lonely?”

Richie’s bare feet give a little shuffle. His pinky toe brushes Eddie.

“Never quite the right voice.” Richie says, smiling self-deprecatingly. He doesn’t say any more than that, but Eddie can practically hear it swimming underneath the surface of his words: _never your voice._ Or that could just be him projecting, again. There’s no way to know, and no way to ask.

“Hm. Well I think it's pretty damn bold of you to call _any_ of them right.” Eddie teases, all blushing cheeks and grinning teeth.

He can practically feel his dimples bisecting his cheeks, but this time he makes no secret of it - him and Richie have always had their banter, of course, a dynamic built of teasing and poking, insults to make a nun blush. But the key to this - and the one thing that everybody always seems to forget - is that the foundation of their dynamic is a bone-deep confidence in the fact that they each think the other is the best thing since sliced bread. Eddie can talk a big game all he wants about how Richie has never been funny a day in his life, but they both know that Richie can make Eddie shriek with laughter without breaking a sweat - hell, he’d often told Richie that he’s the least funny person he’s ever met _while_ doubled over shrieking in laughter. Eddie has always been his biggest fan, and with the distance of over twenty years he is now able to admit that he’d had been a jealous little thing, too, all greedy and grabby, covetous of every little bit of Richie’s attention.

He lets himself have one moment to bask in the strong, warm grip of Richie’s goodnight hug until he is let go, receiving a small chuck under the chin before Richie heads back out to his own room. Eddie watches him go from the doorway, making sure that he doesn’t stub a toe or trip on the smooth hardwood.

Now Eddie closes the door to change into his own pajamas, stolen Nirvana shirt and a pair of boxers. He lies there there for an hour, trying and failing to get himself to sleep before he gives it up entirely, reaching into his pocket to grab the Turtle.

“Um. Hi,” Eddie says awkwardly, having never actually tried to contact the Turtle intentionally like this before, rather than having it respond to his thoughts unsolicited, “So - this feels like a low point but, uh. Do you think I should go to Richie’s room and ask if I can sleep there with him, uh, yes or no.

He is unable to resist the urge to shake it like a Magic 8 Ball. 

♪ _Baby, don’t you know I don’t care?_ ♪ is what echoes through his head in a waspish sort of tone.

“Oh, you are such an _asshole,”_ Eddie whispers “ _now_ you don’t care, now when I actually want your goddamn advice -” 

♪ _Well if something in the air feels a little unkind, /, don’t worry darling, it’ll slip your mind_ ♪

“Maybe it’ll _slip my mind_ not to drop you in the bottom of a _lake,_ you fucking turtle.” Eddie tells it. A beat. 

♪ _No matter where you sleep tonight, / or how far you run,_ the Turtle finally concedes, _Oh, he’s the one_ ♪

“Well, would that have been so fucking difficult to say the first time?” Eddie grumbles, “I mean, Jesus.” 

But in the end, even that isn’t much of an encouragement either way, and so he doesn’t go to Richie’s room after all. Instead he decides to deal with his problems like an adult and just go the fuck to sleep without bothering Richie or anybody else in the house. He briefly considers the aid of sleeping pills, but cuts that thought off before it can take hold too deep.

He must toss and turn for close to two hours, but eventually he does fall off to sleep, clock flashing 2:31am in his periphery. He’s too exhausted for any dreams, but an undercurrent of longing remains to him.

-🐢-

It turns out that living at Richie’s place is better even than Eddie could have imagined. Thirteen year-old Eddie Kaspbrak would absolutely be losing his mind at the easy peace of it, every single day.

It has taken some adjustment - just the other night Eddie had been sitting up in the living room with the rest of them, head lolling back against the couch cushions before shaking himself awake for the fifth time, sun-drunk and exhausted after the day they’d all taken to go down to the beach, even though it was only nine o’clock at night. After Eddie takes a split-second too long to respond to a question from Ben, Richie laughs and chucks a pillow over at him.

“You can go to _bed,_ Eddie, oh my god. You’re clearly exhausted.”

“I can?” he’d asked, genuinely, too tired to think his automatic response through too much. “‘s still early.” 

Bev’s face had turned dark and angry, and Ben had just looked sad as Richie walked him to his room and told him firmly but gently that he should go to bed whenever he’s tired, get up anytime he wants. There’s no warden to get through here. 

Today Ben and Richie are at the grocery store together, because that’s something the two of them have been bonding over these past couple of weeks. Experimenting with cooking styles and serving them up to Bev and Eddie each night, Mike and Bill if they’re around, to get their ratings and see what they think. Today is going to be their first foray into baking, and if Eddie heard correctly they’re on the hunt for chocolate brownie ingredients right now, something nice and simple to start with.

Which leaves Eddie and Bev together at home. With the separation from her husband well underway it’s time for a business rebranding, and in the interest of brainstorming a new fashion line with which to jumpstart this, Bev has also been experimenting with some new styles. This, unexpectedly enough, is a way that Eddie and Bev have been bonding.

Divorcing Myra and trying to rediscover who post-Derry Eddie is has included timid steps forward in revamping his wardrobe, the bland jeans and polos he favoured before the result of his general ambivalence he held toward life without his memories. With the help of Bev he’s been trying out new patterns and colours, and so far it's been soft tones and florals doing it for him. Stupid as it sounds, it makes him feel - gay. In a good way, of course, obviously. He’s been trying to embrace this facet of himself, and jump headfirst into the pursuit of authenticity along with the rest of them, and though it’s been a difficult adjustment, he’s excited to continue to see where it takes him. He’ll wear a fucking floral button-up if he wants to.

The third extra guest room upstairs has been turned into a makeshift sewing studio, and today, Bev’s fixation is athletic wear. This, apparently, is where Eddie fits in. 

“Eddie,” Bev says to him, as soon as Ben and Richie close the door behind them. “Light of my life.”

“Oh, jesus.” Eddie groans, already on his guard. “Whatever you’re about to ask me, Bev -”

“It’s nothing bad!” she says, already laughing. “It’s just - I may need a favour. A tiny favour. Smallest, easiest favour you’ve ever been asked.”

Eddie stares her down.

“So as you know, I’ve been working on some athletic wear concepts. And I’ve gotten some samples cut out finally, which means... I need a model.” she looks at him hopefully.

“No.” Eddie says flatly.

“ _Eddie_ ,” Bev wheedles. “Please. Pretty, pretty please.”

“Bev,” Eddie says solemnly. “I am not a model. Despite what you may think from everything about me as a person, I have never considered _being_ a model. I’m sorry. I know that may be surprising to hear.”

“Oh, shut up! You’re hot! That’s all you need!” Bev says, “My hottest friend. Please. And you wear fucking _Gucci loafers,_ you whiny bitch, don’t act like you’re too good for modelling.”

Eddie snorts at her opening line. “Well I’m sure not going to help you if you’re just going to lie to me, Bev. We’ve both seen Mike.” 

“Nope,” Bev says, face straight. “Hottest one. It’s you. I’ve always thought so and it’s time I told you.”

“In that case,” Eddie says, delicately. “I should probably let you know off the bat that you’re not really my type and- ” Bev laughs, throwing a pillow directly at his face, and Eddie grins back, rolling his eyes.

“Fine! Fine.” he concedes, but points a finger in her direction. “But you owe me _big_ time, Beverly. This is being done unwillingly.”

“Oh thank god,” Bev says, ultimately unsurprised. “Because I should probably confess now that this is really more of an ‘Eddie-inspired’ line than a strictly athletic one - capitalizing on the whole 80s nostalgia thing, you know? Gym shorts, fanny packs, athletic socks, etcetera. Which,” she says triumphantly, “leads into the whole ‘owing you’ business, anyway.”

Eddie scrunches up his face. “How exactly does shoving me into my teenage wardrobe of shorts and socks help _me_ at all?”

Bev stares at him for a moment. “Oh I don’t know,” she says dryly. “How about we just wait and see what happens.”

Which leads them to where they are right now, Eddie displayed in the middle of the living room, shirtless and gym shorts-clad, Bev flitting around him to take measurements and adjust the fit around him.

The shorts she’s designed for him are not what he would have chosen for himself but he… likes them? Surprisingly. They’re a soft pink colour, coming down to just above his mid-thigh, and the fabric is so soft that he can barely feel it on his skin. Paired with it he has on a pair of knee-high white gym socks, pink stripe across the tops. He’ll never tell her, but it’s possible that Bev just may be on to something here.

The soft afternoon sunlight is now filtering into the room, and from down the hall the front door can be heard opening. In walks Bill, half of a sandwich in his mouth, and he stops in his tracks as he sees the scene in the living room.

“D-damn Eddie,” he says as he walks in, eyebrows raised. “Hot girl summer?”

Eddie scowls, hands held protectively over his chest bearing his once-fatal wound from Pennywise; a wound now appearing to the uninformed viewer to be years old. “Ugh. Shut _up_ Bill. I’m doing Bev a favour.”

“You’re doing everyone with eyes a f-favour, bud.” Bill laughs, “Bev knows what she's doing.”

His eyebrows waggle and Eddie stares at him, appalled. 

“ _Bill,_ ” he begs. “Please shut up. Don’t ruin the memory of my innocent childhood reverence of you like this. What are you doing here anyway?”

Bill simply laughs, kicking his legs up on the sofa and settling in to hang out for a bit with Bev and Eddie. “Came to see what everyone was up to. Mike will be by later with some books, but I needed to get out for a b-bit.” 

Mike and Bill had, in their spare time, taken to investigating the boxes upon boxes of occult books that Mike had liberated from Derry Library upon his resignation. Most of them seem so far to be phonies, but the rest of the group lives in fear that the two will one day discover an authentic amongst the piles and unleash some more bullshit magic on them.

If you ask Richie, this fear is second only to the possibility that it will inspire the two of them to collaborate on a new novel together, and Eddie privately agrees. He can’t begin to imagine the kind of ending _that_ book would have, to hear the two of them spitballing ideas. But more often than not now Mike and Bill can be found pouring over them on the floor of Richie’s living room, happy in their little conspiracist bubble while the rest of them do their own things. Richie will often walk in and dramatically lay himself out on the couch, groaning at the ‘gross display of tin-hattery’ taking place in his house, his home, his _safe space,_ but Eddie can see the happiness in his eyes. He loves having a house full of his closest friends.

Bev walks around to Eddie’s left side, flipping up the hem of his shorts to stick through with a pin, and the sudden bright flash reflecting off her collection of sewing needles has Eddie screwing his eyes shut with a sharp pain to the head. It only lasts for a second, hardly even long enough to be of any significance, but it has Bill watching him with a sharp look in his eye, though he says nothing about it.

The three of them hang around for a bit just shooting the shit until the front door opens again, and this time it’s Richie and Ben back from the grocery store.

“Are those Big Bill’s shoes I see at the door?” Richie calls from the hallway, “Who keeps letting that whackjob into my h-”

He stops dead in the living room entranceway, thrown by the sight of a still-shirtless Eddie in Bev’s pink running getup. His lips move as if he believes words are coming out of his mouth, but no sound ever emerges.

Eddie cocks an eyebrow, hand on his hip, and waits for Richie to find his words. This eventuality doesn’t seem to be forthcoming. Richie’s face fills slowly, so slowly with red until Eddie’s surprised that steam isn’t coming out the side of his ears, and Bev and Bill laugh silently behind him.

“Hello?” Eddie asks, waving a hand in Richie’s eyesight. “Earth to Trashmouth? What’s with you?”

“Huh?” Richie responses, eyes like saucers. “Uh - yeah. Hi, Eddie. Bev. Bill.”

“Hey Rich,” Bill calls cheerfully from behind Eddie, “What’d you and Ben pick up?”

Richie doesn’t respond. “We’re making brownies.” Ben prompts helpfully, mouth twitching where he sideyes Richie.

“Uh - yeah. Yeah, we, uh, picked up some shorts. Shortening! We picked up some shortening. For the brownies. That Ben and I are making.” Richie says, a beat too late. A slow trickle of suspicion starts to flow through Eddie’s brain, and his face becomes mischievous as he looks at Bev, who mouths ‘ _still owe you?’_ to him.

Interesting.

“I can’t wait to try them, Richie.” Eddie says cheerfully, body posed casually so that the strong whip-cord muscles of his legs are on full display. “I’m sure they’ll be delicious. Bev’s just been having me try on some clothes for her so she can start getting some ideas for her new line.”

“I’m getting some ideas right now.” Richie mutters to himself.

“What was that?” Eddie asks innocently. 

“Nothing! Nothing, ‘was just talking to myself, sorry. You know me. Can’t get the mouth to stop.” Richie says, quickly and unconvincingly. 

“Hm.” Eddie hums, as if he believes him. “Sure. Anyways guys, I should probably change out of these clothes so we can start to clear all of this up before dinner. God, I feel like I’ve been standing in this position for _hours_.” 

He links his fingers together and stretches his arms high above his head dramatically, throwing his head back and letting out a high moan, ostensibly from the relief of his sore muscles. Richie’s face, which Eddie thought was red before, flames up even further, and he mutters something about putting away groceries so fast it’s nearly unintelligible, practically running out of the room and hitting a doorway on his way out.

“Jesus, Eddie,” Bill splutters with a laugh, face red as Bev applauds quietly in the background.

“That was mean.” Ben says, face unconvincingly disapproving. “Be gentle with him.”

“Don’t know what you mean, Ben.” Eddie says casually, picking his shirt up off of the ground and slinging it around his shoulders. “Gonna go take a shower and change guys. Don’t let Bill eat all the brownie.”

Eddie walks toward the door, turning around right before he leaves to give Bev a deep bow. She cheers his exit on and he chuckles to himself as he makes his way up the stairs toward his room. He doesn’t notice Richie coming down the stairs in front of him until they’ve literally collided. Richie throws out a hand automatically to keep Eddie from falling backwards, and Eddie grabs on to the front of his shirt to help. Oh. Hello. 

“Sorry!” Richie says, keeping him balanced where he wobbles a step below him. “Sorry Eds, I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“Nah, it was my fault.” Eddie grins up at him, fingers still wound tightly in Richie’s grey henley. “I’ve known you were blind as a bat for decades.”

Richie chuckles, and Eddie moves his hands from where they’re clenched tightly in Richie’s shirt to stroke down his biceps, necessitating the press of Richie’s hot palm to the small of his back in order to maintain their balance.

“Lucky for me you’ve filled out since your stringbean days. Thanks for catching me.” Eddie looks up at Richie through his eyelashes, bottom lip held between his teeth and laughing silently to himself. 

“Uh - yeah. ‘f course, Eds.” Richie responds, voice low. His eyes flicker almost imperceptibly down to Eddie’s lips. “I’ve got you. You know that.”

“I do.” Eddie agrees. He breathes in through his nose. “Is that new cologne?” he asks, pressing forward so that his head is cocked diagonal, leaning in to sniff delicately at Richie’s neck, breath hot against his Adam's apple. “Smells nice.”

Richie doesn’t even respond to this, jaw slack and eyes so pupil-black they’re almost fully eclipsing the blue. Their gazes catch, and Richie leans forward just the slightest inch. Eddie really thinks its about to happen, that Richie’s finally going to do it - 

The sound of the doorbell pulls them both from this bubble they’re in, startling Eddie into tripping back down the steps and Richie lunging after him. They both chuckle as they right themselves a third time, eyes flitting shyly to one another. 

“That'll be Mike.” Eddie says eventually, throwing a thumb to point vaguely toward his room. “I should probably go, uh… shower.”

“Yeah. Yeah, and I should go - brownies. Kinda left Ben hanging there.” Richie chuckles ruefully. 

Eddie smiles, starting up the stairs and adding the smallest hint of sway to his hips. “Why? Distracted by something?” he calls back, eyes finding Richie’s over his shoulder, the latter’s flashing upwards real quick. 

“Something like that.” he hears Richie mutter, making his way back down the stairs. Eddie laughs to himself. 

Huh. Maybe it is worth a shot.

-🐢-

Back downstairs, Eddie turns into the kitchen to the mouthwatering smell of homemade brownies. He’s letting his hair air-dry for once, waves allowed to form freely, and he’s changed into some tight cuffed jeans and a soft, white cashmere sweater that falls the slightest bit over his fingers, courtesy of Bev. 

“God, it smells delicious in here.” he says, startling Richie, who bangs his head as he quickly stands up from where he was just taking the pan out of the oven. Richie rubs his head, letting the oven door swing shut with his hip, and placing the hot pan on the stovetop. 

“Thanks Spaghetti Man,” he says, flashing a grin before taking in Eddie in all of his cozy glory, reaching forward to pinch at his cheeks. “Look at you. Cute, cute, cute!”

Eddie playfully bats his hands away, rolling his eyes, and seats himself at the island separating the kitchen from the dining room, his friends all present at the table behind him. 

“Hey Mikey.” he says, throwing a smile over to their most recently arrived friend. Mike raises a hand in response. Richie shuts off the oven, throwing the mitts onto the counter and portions out a piece for everybody, balancing plates on his hand to beckon them all to the living room where Bill and Mike have already got tonight’s study space spread out across the floor. The two of them head there immediately, laying on their stomachs to pick at their brownies and begin flipping through books. Richie and Eddie take the smaller of the two couches, while Bev and Ben claim the larger, Ben’s head comfortable in Bev's lap. 

“So what’s everyone been up to today?” Mike asks, idly turning a page, and marking something down in one of their many notebooks. “Apart from some master baking, of course.”

Richie snorts at this, ‘ _masterbaking’_ repeated under breath, and Eddie throws an elbow out to jab at this stomach. 

“Eddie did some modelling for me,” Bev tells him. “He’s going to be the face of my 80s-wear line if I have anything to say about it.”

“ _Please_ tell me you’ve made him a fanny pack, Bev,” Richie begs over the sound of Eddie’s protests at her announcement. “I’ll die if I’m deprived of that for another twenty years.”

Bev simply throws him a wink, and Mike laughs.

“And how’s it looking so far?” he asks Bev, but it’s Bill who catches his attention, sighing and waving a hand at his face as if in a swoon. This catches both Richie and Mike’s attention, faces turning just a slightest bit stony, a fact that has Eddie’s stomach clenching in anticipation. Bev’s eyes flash to his, eyebrows raised, and the anticipation shifts very suddenly to fear.

“Bill’s right. Eddie’s looking great, whatever he says otherwise,” she tells Mike conspiratorially. “He said the funniest thing today - when I told him that he should be my model I mentioned that he’s the hottest of my friends, and you know what he said to me?”

She turns a smirking look to Eddie, where he sits on the couch with a Richie who is already leaning forward in anticipation.

“Bev!” Eddie protests, face already heating up. He hates his friends. “Shut _up,_ I was joking!” 

“What’d he say?” Richie demands, clearly deeply invested in whatever the answer will be.

“He said, and I quote, ‘ _I’m not going to help you if you lie to me, Bev. We’ve all seen Mike.’_ ” Eddie groans as Mike bursts out in laughter, throwing an exaggerated wink over to him, and now it’s Bill’s turn to sit stony-faced, and Eddie can see Richie’s frown from the corner of his eyes.

“I had no idea you felt that way about me, Eddie.” Mike says solemnly. “Had I known that all of those days herding the lambs together had meant so much to you, -”

“Shut _up!_ ” Eddie squawks, probably for the fiftieth time that day, throwing a pillow over to bounce against Mike’s laughing face. Mike throws him one last wink before turning back to his books, and the conversation turns to other matters. Eddie turns to his side and draws his knees up to look at Richie who hasn’t yet said a word since his demand to know Eddie’s response to Bev.

“So Mike, huh?” Richie asks quietly, mouth pulled up as if in a joke, but Eddie can see the insecurity behind his eyes. “Can’t blame you. Man’s a smokeshow.”

“Nah,” Eddie says, just as softly. “Mike’s not really my type.” Richie looks over at this finally, and Eddie scoots nearer to him, their faces close. 

“No?” Richie asks, eyes falling to Eddie’s mouth for the second time that day. “Just what is your type then?” 

Eddie smiles lazily at him, a finger coming forward to brush a stay curl out of Richie’s glasses. “How about I let you take a guess on that one.” he says softly, and smiles before laying himself out to curl up and drop his head into Richie’s lap, a mirror image of Bev and Ben across from them. It only takes a heartbeat for Richie’s big hand to come down, stroking gently through the waves.

-🐢-

There’s something to be said for a slow burn, Eddie thinks. Granted, he’d never expected this particular burn to take _forty years_ to come to fruition, but it’s the hand they’ve been dealt and he’ll take what he can get. 

Over the next couple of weeks, Eddie works harder and harder to fluster Richie, pressing for the day he’ll finally break and just fucking _kiss_ him. He could just do it himself, sure, and Eddie’s ninety-nine percent certain that it would be well-received, it’s just. Well, Eddie’s got a competitive streak, so sue him. He’s going to make sure that Richie breaks first if it’s the last thing he does, and then he’s never going to stop gloating about it for the rest of their lives.

He thinks that Richie may have an inkling of what’s happening here, but Eddie makes sure to keep a close eye on him regardless. If it ever seems to Eddie that Richie feels he’s being messed with, or that he’s anything less than dead serious when it comes to his feelings, he’ll shut the whole operation down in a second, competitive nature be damned. 

It’s a Tuesday afternoon this time, and Bev and Richie are bopping around the kitchen to some 70’s radio station while Eddie sits stationed at the kitchen island, rating them on their dance moves. He’s just thrown up a disappointed four (hastily scribbled in red marker on a grocery receipt) for their attempt at a swing dance, when Ben walks in, huge vase of lillies in his hands. 

“Hey there, Haystack.” Richie calls from where he’s leant against the counter, chest heaving and eyes bright from his and Bev’s impromptu dance off. “Whatcha got there?”

Ben toes off his runners and heads sheepishly into the kitchen, vase outstretched. “There was uh - woman selling these down the street on my run. Thought I’d pick some up.”

“For _me?_ ” Richie gasps, hand pressed against his chest, the swooning Southern Belle. “Oh sugar, you really shouldn’t have.”

“For Bev, actually.” Ben responds dryly, handing them over to Bev who is now making grabby hands from her own perch on the counter.

“These are lovely Ben. Thank you.” Bev presses a kiss to Ben’s cheek, hopping up to transfer the liles to the kitchen table centre, beautiful and proud.

Richie’s body droops dramatically at the loss and he walks himself around the kitchen like that, the picture of despondency. Eddie chokes on his laughter.

“You look like the Bigfoot footage when they stabilize it,” he says, hopping off of his stool to demonstrate. “You know - with his shoulders all hunched and taking those huge strides.”

Richie’s mouth twitches but he smothers it valiantly. 

“Where are my flowers, huh?” Richie demands sadly. “All of this love I have to give to you all every day, and for what? Empty hands. Empty heart. Empty vases. Nobody loves the Sasquatch.”

Eddie forms a tiny violin with his hands, playing it with a solemn reverence, and Richie leans over in an attempt to dunk Eddie’s head into the soapy water of the sink. Eddie pushes him off with a laugh, but thinks to himself _Huh. There’s a thought, isn’t it._

As Bev and Ben head to the other room, voices soft and hands entwined, Eddie pokes at his phone. Richie is at the stove again now, going on about some cryptid spotted video he’s watched the other day and Eddie is humming at all of the appropriate moments though not really listening. He does spare a second to appreciate the continuity of the Loch Ness Richie of the quarry, eyes popped over the surface of the water and ready to drag him under, and the Bigfoot Richie of his kitchen trying to drown him in the sink. Satisfied with his work, Eddie locks his phone, dropping it to gift Richie with his full attention, head propped up in his hand. 

It’s another twenty minutes before the doorbell rings. Richie is cut off from whatever he’s saying, looking down at his soapy hands and then over at Eddie, who shrugs and turns his head away.

Huffing out a disbelieving snort, Richie quickly dries his hands on the dish towel hanging from the stove and heads to the front door with a roll of his eyes. 

“For me?” he hears Richie’s confused voice ask, and an indistinct hum of agreement. The sound of a foot nudging the door shut, the unsheathing of paper, and then complete silence.

Eddie hides his grin in his hands.

Richie walks back into the room slowly, cheeks flushed and eyes wide. In his hands is a beautiful bouquet of red roses and dark violets, a heavy piece of folded stationery resting in the middle. Eddie doesn’t need to read it to know what is written there, in curling black ink. 

_Roses are red,_

_Violets are blue,_

_You may be a Sasquatch,_

_But I still love you ♥︎_

  
“Point made.” is all Richie mutters, but doesn’t say anything more, blushing right up to the roots of his hair. Eddie grins. Gotcha.

-🐢-

So really, all things considered, Eddie couldn’t be happier. He’s in California, living with his best friends, inching ever closer to finally realizing happily-ever-after with the love of his life. 

There’s only one thing.

Every night, Eddie dreams of Stan. This wouldn’t have been so strange on its own; Stan was one of them, after all, and his loss had cleaved a huge piece out of all six of them. And Eddie hasn’t forgotten the Stan of the shop window back in Derry. It’s just that he’s not convinced that it wasn’t simply the result of shock and exhaustion.

Or something else, entirely, something a little more pharmaceutical, but that thought he refuses to entertain. 

It’s the same routine, every night. Eddie will drop off to sleep after hours of tossing and turning, nausea and headache taunting him, daring him to swallow a pill and make it all go away. Once asleep, it’s only a matter of time before Stan appears and no matter the location, his demeanor is always the same. 

Sometimes they’re both in the river, Stan blue-faced and shivering, lying below him on the pebbles and sand. Other times they’re in Neibolt, Eddie wandering the halls and catching brief glimpses of his friend through the dirty mirrors as he passes by. On the worst nights, it’s a bathroom, Eddie chained to a medicine cabinet, screaming and unable to reach his friend as he slices his wrists in the bathtub. In every single one, Stan turns to him mournfully, reciting dully the same song that the Turtle had, back on Kansas Street. 

The bathtub faucet drips. ♪ _Ain’t no angel gonna greet me, it’s just you and I my friend_ ♪ 

They float along the river, Eddie above Stan below, faces parallel. ♪ _The night has fallen, I’m lyin’ awake, I can feel myself fading away_ ♪

Neibolt’s walls creak and groan, the floor threatening to give way at any second. ♪ _So receive me brother with your faithless kiss - or will we leave each other alone like this?_ ♪

Every night, again and again, until Eddie has stopped trying to sleep at all, sitting up at the kitchen table until dawn breaks and he falls asleep there, body unable to stay up any longer. ♪ _Oh brother, are you gonna leave me wasting away?_ ♪

He’s starting to feel again that by dying before Pennywise’s heart was crushed he’d missed out on something more than simply killing the clown down there in the sewers. All of the rest of them seem to be thriving, free of the burdens that had plagued them before reuniting in Derry. Richie’s been workshopping a completely new comedy set, one hundred percent original and authentic to present to his manager; Bill’s brainstorming of story endings have vastly improved; Mike is blooming once again in the company of his friends, nervous paranoia gone; the depression that had seemed to hang off of Ben has dissipated; and Bev had never been as carefree as she was now, living with her best friends and testing out her latest pieces on Eddie.

And none of _them_ seem to be having any nightmares at all, a fact that has Eddie hesitant to reveal his own nighttime disturbances. 

It all comes to a head one night, as Eddie sits there at his usual spot at the kitchen table, body scrunched up like a cat on the chair, fingers tapping out a rhythmless pattern. It’s all so fucking frustrating, and none of it makes sense. Shoving a hand into his pocket, Eddie pulls out the Turtle, tired of all the mystery, just wanting to understand.

“What does it mean?” Eddie asks the Turtle exhausted, palm flat so he can look it right in it’s tiny wooden eyes. “Why am I dreaming of Stanley? And why like this?”

♪ _Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact -_ ♪

“That’s not an answer! I know Stanley is fucking dead, which is why I want you to actually tell me why this is happening to me-”

♪ _Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact -_ ♪

“ _Fuck_ you!” Eddie shouts, forgetting the time. “You think I don’t know that? If all you’re going to tell me is that he’s dead - ”

“Eddie?”

That’s Richie’s voice in the doorway, fists rubbing against his eyes, blinking confusedly. Eddie looks up, startled by his unheard entrance, palm falling open to drop the Turtle. 

“What’s got you looking so mean, Spaghetti Man?” Richie yawns. “It’s 3am, dude. Time for all good Eddie’s to be in bed.”

“It’s - nightmare.” Eddie blurts out. 

He can’t tell Richie about Stan. Not only would Richie lose his mind worrying over Eddie when he already has so many other things on his plate, but Richie and Stan had been especially close and even the secondhand account of Eddie’s dreams would hurt him more than Eddie is willing to allow. 

Before it was the seven of them, and even before it was the four of them, it had been two sets of two: Bill and Eddie, and Richie and Stan. And the latter two had bounced off of each other effortlessly: Richie’s exuberance and Stan’s dry wit, Richie’s pranks and Stan’s quick cover stories, Richie’s impulsivity and Stan’s precautions. Only when it really mattered, of course - Stan had always been especially protective of Richie, claws coming out whenever it seemed that something had truly cut him deep; but otherwise Stan had always been right there with Richie, goading him on from the sidelines with that faint smile gracing his face. 

And what’s more, Eddie had always gotten the sense that there were secrets between Stan and Richie that even _he_ wasn’t privy to - him! Richie’s best friend! He can admit to himself in the safety of his own head now at least that the fact had grated at him like nothing else.

So no - Eddie wouldn’t tell Richie about his Stanley dreams. They were all torn up over his loss, but Eddie could sense in Richie something that ran deeper in a different way, an open wound that he refused to acknowledge and redirected if asked about it. Take Eddie away and Richie had become something senseless, a wild animal lashing out at everything around him, unable to function properly. But take Stanley away and it was as if Richie was left with a dead limb. He walks around and jokes just as he had before, but it was never quite the same and a permanent heaviness lies beneath in his eyes now.

Richie is studying his face now, lit as it is in strips of light streaming in through the open window. Going from the pity in his eyes, Eddie knows what he thinks he sees there. That it’s the moment that Pennywise tore a hole through his that haunts his sleep, or the leper, or Bowers in the bathroom. Keene’s basement. Bev’s bloody bathroom. The projector in the Denbrough garage. The fortune cookies. Take your pick. And that’s good - Eddie would rather he believe that. Hell, Eddie would rather _be_ dreaming about those things. At least any of it would make more sense than the despondent, lingering Stan.

“How long have you been up?” Richie asks softly. Eddie scrubs a hand over his eyes.

“Haven’t gone to sleep yet.” Eddie says.

“Has it been like this every night?” Richie says, eyebrows raised, leaning more heavily against the door now. Eddie just shrugs a shoulder up, unwilling to reveal the extent of his insomnia.

Richie _whooshes_ out a small noise through his nose, and then he sticks out his hand. Wiggles his fingers.

Eddie stares blankly. 

“What am I supposed to do with that.” he says flatly. 

Richie rolls his eyes. “You’re _supposed_ to take it, dumbass. You’re bunking with me tonight, Spaghetti Man. No nightmares allowed in _dormitorio de Trashmouth._ ”

Eddie looks at him, unimpressed. “So you’ve not been having any nightmares, then.”

Richie pauses. “No nightmares preferred in _dormitorio de Trashmouth._ ” he amends. Eddie hesitates. If he dreams of Stan - and if Richie hears that -

Richie wiggles his fingers again. And he’s just so _tired._

“Okay.” Eddie says, unspooling himself from where he sits scrunched at the kitchen table, bending down to scoop up the Turtle where he’s dropped on the ground, as if simply stretching. “Okay.”

Richie leads Eddie to his bedroom - or, it may be said more accurately that _Eddie_ leads _Richie_ to his own bedroom, hand curling around his elbow to avoid his glasses-less body running into walls and waking everybody up. Richie bumps open the door with a hip, enters, Eddie padding in softly behind him.

And then he sees them. The now slightly-wilted bouquet of violets and roses has been carefully arranged into a vase that Eddie hasn’t seen before, sitting there on Richie’s bedside table. Where he can see them as he goes to sleep, shadowed dark maroon. Where he can see them when he wakes up first thing in the morning, sunlight turning them cherry red. 

It’s this sight that gives Eddie the bravery to guide Richie to the bed by hand, fingers curled around just the tips of Richie’s own. To push him down gently onto the mattress, and himself down after, taking Richie’s left hand and pulling it over his body. To push himself back against Richie’s chest. It’s one thing to tease Richie, to fluster him into heating blood and expanded pupils, exchanging lighthearted flirtations throughout the day. It’s another thing altogether to flay himself open in the dark like this, to let Richie know without words that he’s somebody who wants to be held. That he’s someone who wants to be held by Richie. 

He’s _not_ abnormally small, whatever his friends say. He’s just as tall as Bill and Bev are, for god’s sake - _Big_ Bill! That said, in the privacy of his own mind he feels safe to admit it. That it’s nice, really, with Richie’s strong arms around him, to allow himself to _feel_ small for once. 

-🐢-

So he doesn’t have a nightmare that night, sleeping in Richie’s arms. And that’s great - really. Having a full night's sleep for the first time in weeks has made all the difference in his ability to function like a human. The unfortunate thing is that this one night of sleep does nothing to solve the Turtle’s insistence on making this whole thing a daytime issue. 

Again and again, every time Stan crosses his thoughts and his hand happens to be in his pocket, the Turtle has only one thing to say. It’s gotten to the point that he’s almost thrown the Turtle away, stuffed it into a bag or a drawer somewhere so he doesn’t have to think about it anymore, except that something has stalled his hand every time.

♪ _Everything dies, baby that’s a fact / but mayb-_ ♪

“Shut up,” Eddie snaps for the tenth time, “Shut _up_ , I know he’s dead, okay, I don’t need to hear it from you.” 

The Turtle burns hotter, but Eddie won’t curl a hand around it again. More and more often, he’s been thinking of that short story that Richie had been so obsessed with as a child, voracious reader that he was. The Monkey’s Paw had grabbed him and hooked him like hardly anything since the infamous astronaut phase. He’d been absolutely obsessed with the concept, even more so after their experience down in the sewers. Riche was so convinced that he would be able to outsmart the paw if only he had the chance to, constantly bouncing ideas off of the rest of them down in the clubhouse while they debated gamely over the efficacy of his solutions.

But no matter what he’d propose, they’d always find some sort of catch. And they’d always come to the exact same conclusion as the story had. Nothing comes free. Careful what you wish for. 

So, no. Eddie won’t bite. He knows the price of a curling finger. 

-🐢-

Well. All the best laid plans of turtles and men.

-🐢-

Eddie is back in the river. 

He’d gone to bed with Richie tonight, withdrawal headaches pounding at his skull and knowing that a peaceful night's sleep was a longshot before his head had even thought about hitting the pillow. He does fall asleep eventually, lulled there by the warmth of Richie’s arms and his whistling breath. And he ends up in the river.

He will always be in the river and be thrown right back out again. It’s an endless cycle. Eddie will never be dry, he’s lived in the river his whole life, he never really left, it swallowed him that very first time. The water rushes over his head. He thrashes side-to-side, his five-year old self and his forty-year old self searching desperately for something to cling to, but this time it’s not a turtle in the water, it’s Stan’s face, blue and cold ♪ _Oh brother, are you going to leave me wasting away? ♪_ he asks him, a terrible sadness marring his delicate features. And Eddie tries to scream, but his lungs fill with water instead and all he can do is choke. Why didn’t he listen to his mom when she told him that his lungs were too weak to swim? Why did he have to throw out his inhaler? ♪ _Don’t call for your surgeon, even he says it’s too late_ , Pennywise jeers at him, and now the clown is a river turtle and it’s telling him _it’s not your lungs this time, it’s your heart that holds your fate_ ♪ He can’t hold his breath any longer, his mouth is gasping open and he’s choking, he’s drowning, he's _taking on water folks! Batten down the hatches, we’re really in the doldrums now! Eddie Kaspbrak is stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea!_

“Eddie.” Richie’s voice is saying to him, “Breathe, sweetheart, you have to breathe.”

“ _Can’t_ Richie, I can’t - I’m - I’m drowning…”

“You’re not drowning, Eddie baby, you’re safe and sound right here in bed,” Richie murmurs, “Take deep breaths for me, honey, you’re going to hurt yourself.”

 _I can’t, I can’t!_ five year old Eddie is crying, _I can’t breathe and I can’t float and I can’t save Stan_...

“M’face is wet….”

“You’re crying, sweetheart.” Richie murmurs, thumbs wiping away the tears as he says it, but Eddie’s wide awake now and he’s done, he can’t fucking do this anymore, not even Richie’s sweet words are enough to make the images disappear from behind his eyelids. 

“The Turtle, Richie, where’s the Turtle I need to - to ask it -” he gasps, trying to sit up but Richie just shushes at him, keeping his smaller body firmly pressed up in his embrace, and he doesn’t have the energy to fight it.

“The Turtle?” he hears from the doorway, and it’s only then that he notices that Ben and Bev have stumbled out of bed to come and see what all the commotion is, presumably awoken by his screams.

Under normal circumstances he may have spared a thought to be embarrassed at having been found like this, shirtless and in bed with Richie, but that has to be the last thing on his priority list right now. 

“I’ll find it, Eddie, okay but you need to breathe for me. You’re going to pass out if you keep at this. Alright?” Eddie nods and tries his best to listen, taking deep, shuddering breaths in and trying to even out his breathing.

Richie keeps an arm locked firmly around Eddie, hand spreading up and down his chest, while the other gropes around the sheets for the small source of heat. It’s clear once he locates it, letting out a yelp and tossing it hot-potato between his two hands. He keeps at this, probably hoping it will cool, but Eddie knows better. He throws a hand out, gesturing impatiently, but Richie still hesitates before he complies, searching Eddie’s face to ensure that he’s calmed down enough to handle it. Eddie must pass the test because the next thing he knows Richie is pressing the Turtle gently into the palm of his hand. 

“I don’t get it,” he tells the Turtle, “I don’t get it, you keep telling me that Stan is dead and to get over it, but I just keep dreaming about him and I know that he wants me to look for him, he wants me to find him, and I’m listening now. Just tell me what all of it means, _please_.”

Ben and Bev are still in the doorway, and now they’re reacting to hearing this, too loud, too distracting. Eddie waves a hand frantically in their direction and Richie throws out a “Guys, shut _up_ for a minute, please”. They fall silent, and it’s clear that they aren’t happy about it, but that’s not Eddie’s concern.

Coast clear, the Turtle offers him the same song as ever, but Eddie has hit a deadend and doesn’t know what else to do. So this time, instead of simply cutting it off at the source as he usually does, he lies there silent to let it finish whatever it has to say. He just hopes it will be enough. He doesn’t know what the fuck to do if it isn’t.

What he hears nearly catapults his heart out of his chest.

♪ _Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact / But maybe everything that dies someday comes back, / Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty, / And meet me tonight in Atlantic City_ ♪

Eddie’s whole body jerks. Richie flinches, startled by the sudden movement and looks at him nervously. 

“What is it, Eds? What did he say?”

Eddie stares up at him, and then over at the visibly confused Ben and Bev in the doorway, before scrubbing his hands over his eyes. “I’m sorry. I think we need to get the others.”

-🐢-

4:30am. The glow of the numbers on the stove may as well be daggers, sharp pinpricks of light lighting up Eddie’s brain like an electrical storm. His leg is shaking up and down so fast that it rattles Bev’s vase of lilies, and Richie’s big hand comes gently to settle on his knee.

Ben is putting the kettle on. Bev is perched on the counter, still as a statue. It’s clear that she’s torn between demanding an explanation and not wanting to exacerbate his upset. Neither Richie nor Eddie have begun to explain a thing to them yet, but how can they? It’s not fair to start without Mike and Bill, but then it hasn’t been fair at all for Eddie to have kept this from all of them for so long.

And for what, in the end? To have some sort of inside joke with Richie? Just because he feels insecure about his _own_ fucking drug abuse that he _chose_ to keep doing, it’s all been so fucking selfish of him, what an absolute _waste of breath_ he can be when he puts his mind to it -

“Eds, honey.” Richie says softly, pulling him from his spiralling thoughts, hand hot and firm against his knee. Bev’s head jerks up at the sound and Ben stills. His voice drops lower in response; this is for Eddie’s ears and Eddie’s ears alone. “You need to take a breath. It’s all okay, you get that? Nobody will be angry or upset with you for not saying anything. You haven’t done a thing wrong.”

Uncanny. As if he has a direct line to Eddie’s brain. It’s only too bad that Richie’s forgiveness famously exists on planes separate from anyone else’s. Eddie shakes his head viciously, heels of his hands pressed into his eyes.

“They _should_ be angry with me, Richie, it’s - it’s all my fault. I _should_ have told them, you know I should have. I just -” his eyes flick over to Bev and Ben, ostensibly trying not to listen in, and his voice quiets down to become nearly inaudible. “I just didn’t want them to think that I’m crazy. For fuck’s sake, _I_ think I’m crazy. Little Eddie Kaspbrak with his paranoia and his pills, looks like all those drugs have finally succeeded in addling his fucking brain, he’s hearing _turtles_ speak now-”

His hands are removed firmly but gently from his face; Richie’s fierce expression filling up his field of view.

“ _Nobody_ thinks that, Eddie.” he says. “And you shouldn’t be sitting around thinking that either. There isn’t a thing wrong with you or your brain. You’re perfect. That was something that was done _to_ you, honey; it’s not your fault.”

“It’s just - it was enough that _you_ believed me,” Eddie says, voice wobbling. “I didn’t want it to have to go further than that. I’m - fucking scared.” Richie’s thumbs wipe away, and his tone is light when he speaks next. 

“Nothing to be scared about, Eddie baby. We fought an alien clown together. Talking turtles were just next on the list.” 

The doorbell rings. And rings, and rings, and rings. Bev hops off the counter and stalks over to answer it. The kettle shrieks. Eddie grabs at Richie’s shirtsleeve before he can move away.

“Don’t - don’t tell them, please. About the pills.” he asks quietly. Richie’s look is tender. His finger moves across his lips, _zip_. And throws away the key. 

-🐢-

_Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock._

The unfortunate truth is that not everybody takes such outlandish news as well as Richie naturally does. Bev and Ben have sunk further and further with resigned exhaustion, Mike is… silent, and Bill is buzzing with the frustration of having not known something, and the betrayal of Eddie not disclosing it to him. 

On the bright side of things, Eddie apparently has nothing to worry about purely on the belief angle. 

“Oh, Maturin.” Mike says. 

Eddie turns his head slowly, so slowly to face him. The casual tone with which that is said may just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

“What,” Eddie says clearly, “the fuck do you mean, _Oh, Maturin_. Because if you’re telling me that this _entire time_ you could have explained to me what the fuck has been going on inside my head -”

“Well to do that, he’d have to _know_ about what was happening inside your head, wouldn’t he Eddie?” Bill shoots, eyes flashing. Eddie sinks back, chagrined. His chest feels too tight. Richie glares at Bill. 

“Wait,” Ben says. “I’m sorry, can we back up a minute? So Maturin, Great Turtle God in the Sky of Bill and Mike’s conspiracy books, chooses to bring you back to life after Pennywise kills you. And, for whatever reason, he needs to find a way to keep talking to you. And the way that he chooses to do that is through…Bruce Springsteen lyrics?” 

“Yeah,” Bev says, “now that you mention it, that is weird. Why Springsteen? Why not, like… Kate Bush?”

“That is - not what I meant.” Ben says.

“No, no, she’s right. Eddie listened to a _lot_ of Kate Bush as a kid.” Richie whispers to Ben.

Eddie splutters, and Mike tilts his head to the side, grin tugging at the corner of his lip. “It’s true Eds. I always gave you control of the music in the truck and I do seem to recall an alarming amount of _Hounds of Love_.”

Richie catches on quickly to Mike’s attempt to calm Eddie, likely meant as a reassuring counterweight to Bill’s stinging, betrayed anger. 

“Wow, this is actually so exciting it’s like- okay, you guys know how in Twilight all of the vampires have their own powers? Based on their personalities? So this is Eddie’s, except his is based on a latent desire to get railed by raspy-voiced twinks-”

“Shut _up_ Richie, it’s not- his music is-I just, I liked cars!”

“Oh I know, and I bet you’d _love_ to ride his-“

Mike hums thoughtfully now, mission accomplished, and strokes a finger across his chin, well-practiced in the art of ignoring Richie and Eddie. “It makes sense, actually, if you really think about it.”

“It does?” Ben asks, brow furrowed, and Richie nods along.

“Yeah, does Maturin also have Springsteen’s greatest hits on vinyl and was just waiting for some poor sucker to-” 

Mike rolls his eyes. “ _No_. I mean that an interdimensional deity like Maturin obviously won’t have the same communication methods as us, would he? So then if he wants to keep a line of communication open, he’d need to choose something that’s both simplistic and directly appealing to Eddie.” 

“I beg your fucking pardon.” Eddie says. Mike ignores this, cutting straight to the point. 

“I’m glad you told us this, Eddie.” he says earnestly, “I am. And it's okay that you couldn’t before. But…I mean, is there something else? It’s just - if you had wanted to keep it quiet, I’m not sure why you’d want to pull us all together like this so suddenly unless the situation had changed. ” 

Eddie takes a deep breath and nods slowly.

“So. The way that the Turtle works is that I think of something, or it heats up, and if I’m touching it I can listen to what it says, right? And it’ll choose an appropriate lyric for whatever or… _whoever_ I’m thinking about.”

Eddie grabs his phone and scrolls through Spotify now to find the right song. “And a lot of the time I’m - I’ve been thinking about Stan. About how much we all miss him and how wrong it feels to not have him here with us and– well every time I think about him, it’s always the same song. And I never let it run the whole lyric through, not until tonight.” He taps the song.

♪ _Everything dies, baby, that’s a fact / But maybe everything that dies someday comes back ♪_

Dead silence meets these words, each of the Losers staring at Eddie while trying to digest this new information. Eddie’s chest tightens further. All of this time, kept secret. And no idea what the consequences of that secrecy has been for Stan. All parties present are shell-shocked, except for Richie who was already mostly in the loop, and instead throws an arm around Eddie’s shoulders in order to anchor him amidst the heavy looks.

Eddie is floored by what the cost of this show of solidarity must be, knowing now how Eddie hasn’t been truthful with him, how he’ll shortly know that his forbearance may have cost Stan everything.

Once more unto the breach. He knows that one.

“And that’s - not all.” Eddie says. “I’ve been dreaming about Stan almost every night. And every night it’s like he wants me to find him. To retrieve him from somewhere, but he can never tell me how or where.”

“Okay,” Bill breaks the silence, reigning in his resentment tremendously amidst this immediate information. “Okay so – so then Stan is. I mean, that has to mean he–” 

“Yes, Bill,” Richie says patiently, “I think it’s safe to assume that the Turtle doesn’t mean ‘come back’ metaphorically, in our loving thoughts and prayers.” 

“You have _had time to digest this,_ ” Bill grits out, “Give me a second to adjust here. Just because you had an honorary membership to Eddie’s weird turtle god music club –” 

“Actually, I’ve suggested _Eddie Kaspbrak’s All-Dead Rock Show.”_ Richie says, shark’s grin. “More personality, I think. More _oomph_.”

“Bruce Springsteen isn’t dead though,” Bev points out, “And he’s more folk-rock, anyway. So, actually in terms of accuracy –” 

“Okay guys,” Ben interrupts, “Can we please just try to focus here? For once? If Stan is – actually alive. Then. What’s our next step? Where is he?” 

“Patty would have called us if he had shown up at home,” Mike said firmly, “There’s no way she wouldn’t let us know first thing. But one of the books from Derry that Bill and I read about the other day mentioned resurrections, and maybe–”

Eddie lets his friends argue amongst themselves for the time being, rolling the wooden turtle around in his hand, over and over.

 _Come on_ , he thinks, _I hear you. We all hear you. We can bring Stan back. So pick a different song, tell me where I can find him._

But Turtle Bruce just keeps on repeating the same lyrics, over and over, which isn’t actually fucking helpful, thanks – ♪ _Everything dies, baby that’s a fact / But maybe everything that dies someday comes back. / Put your makeup on, fix your hair up pretty –_ ♪

It only runs through a couple more times before everything suddenly crystallizes in Eddie’s head.

“Oh,” Eddie says out loud now, interrupting the heated debate going on around him, “Of course. Hilarious. He doesn’t mean ' _meet me tonight in Atlantic City’._ He means ‘meet me in _an_ Atlantic city’. _”_

He raises his head, looking each of his friends in the eye, one by one. The realization dawns on each of their faces in turn, and Eddie has to look away, guilt welling up in his chest for bringing all of this trouble back to them despite the fact that he never _asked_ to be the receptacle for Turtle prophecy. 

“Back to Derry,” Bill says heavily. 

♪ _This is your hometown,_ Maturin confirms finally, _this is your hometown_ ♪

Eddie sunk down, closer into the warmth and sturdiness of Richie. “Yeah Billy. Back to Derry.”

-🐢-

Derry is all about belief. How many times do they have to learn? How many ways do they have to be told? Eddie can’t believe he didn’t see it before. How naive they all were, but how stupid he, specifically, has been this whole time. 

They had gotten so close to grasping it, down there in the sewers. _All living things must abide by the laws of the shape they inhabit._ Their mistake was in thinking that this only applied to Pennywise, and not everything else that Derry has ever touched. 

It should have been obvious. After all, Eddie never really was asthmatic. It was the instinctual belief that his mother would always tell him the truth that had him wheezing and gasping all over town. Bill believed so strongly that the seven of them would find Georgie that the town dissolved the layer of film over their eyes and showed them a path that had never before been discovered by any other resident of Derry in all of the long centuries that Pennywise had terrorized the town. Stan had believed that he would always be the weak link in the group's unity, and so he had been the one separated from the rest time and again.

Impossible in retrospect to tell what were punishments directly from the clown, and what were simply the repercussions of their own beliefs. 

They are all back in Derry now. Back at the empty Townhouse. No joking around this time, no happy catching up, no restaurant dinner to ease them into action. They’d flown, they’d arrived, and it had been up to him to find out from the Turtle how they were meant to get Stan back. 

Flip. ♪ _Struck me kinda funny, seem kinda funny sir to me / Still, at the end of every hard day people find some reason to believe._ ♪ 

Flip. ♪ _Struck me kinda funny, funny yeah indeed, / how at the end of every hard-earned day you can find some reason to believe._ ♪ 

Flip. ♪ _They pray, ‘Lord won’t you tell us, / Tell us what does it mean’, / At the end of every hard-earned day people find some reason to believe._ ♪

Flip. 

Eddie reports each of these snippets robotically. And paired with what they already know of the town, it seems so clear to them now - Eddie was brought back by the power of a strong enough belief, Richie screaming himself hoarse about how _they could still save him_ loud enough to wake up God himself. In theory, all they need to do now is the same thing for Stan.

Except that it’s been six hours, pacing the Townhouse. No Stan.

“I just don’t _f-fucking_ get it,” Bill says, tearing his hair. “We’re here. You’ve made us believe that we can bring Stan b-back. So why is he _not here_.”

“I don’t know.” Eddie says, voice small. “I don’t _know_. I’m sorry. I don’t know why it isn’t working either.”

“I mean _it doesn’t make sense!_ How come Eddie’s been brought back, but not Stan? Not Betty Ripsom, not - G-Georgie? Shouldn’t it work the same way for everybody? I sure b-believed that Georgie would come home.”

Richie throws his hands up in the air. “Did the _alien space clown_ make sense to you, Big Bill? Has anything that has ever happened to us in this fucking town ever _made sense_ to you?"

Bill shakes his head. “And how are we even supposed to k-know that M-Maturin is telling us the truth at all? Or that he even _exists,_ I mean, Eddie,” he turns to face him, beseechingly, “It’s not that - do you think maybe you just feel g-guilty? That you got brought back and Stan d-didn’t? You don’t think maybe getting off all the p-pills has got you all mixed up?”

Eddie flinches back so hard it’s as if he’s been slapped.

“Billy,” Bev whispers, appalled, “How could you-”

“Take it back.” Richie demands, standing up so fast that the armchair falls back, face white. “Take that back, Bill, or I swear to god -”

“No,” Eddie says, his own voice coming from somewhere far, far away from him. “No, Bill, he’s - yeah. He could be right. It could be me. It could be the pills. I’m glad that one of you said it.”

“ _No_ , Eddie.” Mike says, shaking his head. “Bill shouldn't have - it’s nothing to do with pills. That’s not it. We believe you.”

“No, he’s right. I mean, why me, huh? Why _not_ Stan, or Georgie, or Betty?” Eddie asks, frenzied. “Why do I deserve to be alive, and not them? I _should_ feel guilty for that.”

“No, Eddie I -” Bill says, contrite. “M-Mikey’s right. That wasn’t fair. I shouldn’t have said any of it. I’m sorry, Eddie. I d-don’t really think that.” 

But Eddie’s not listening to any of this. He sees clearly now, the only thing left to do. None of them know whether or not any of this is real. Whether it’s a divine power handing them a second chance at having their whole family together, or whether it’s just Eddie, paranoid and off his mind. As always. There’s only one way to find out, and Eddie’s already gone far enough in making his bullshit everybody else’s problem.

“I have to go to the bathroom.” Eddie says, interrupting whatever Ben was saying mid-sentence. He stands to leave and Richie stands at the same time, placing a hand gently on his arm.

“I’ll go with you.” he says, angry eyes turning soft and worried when they meet his. Eddie shrugs Richie’s hand off of his arm, far less gently than it had been placed there.

“No,” he says. “I want to be alone right now.”

He ignores his friends as they call after him. He walks out of the sitting room. He makes his way up the stairs, as if towards the bathroom. He doubles back. He exits through the fire escape.

-🐢-

It’s a long walk to Rabbi Uris’ old synagogue. Eddie doesn’t expect to find Stan there, but he needs to feel closer to him, somehow, and though he’d never made it to Stan’s Bar Mitzvah back in 1989, something else had taken place here that had always stuck out to him.

It was September of 1991, but the weather was still clinging on to the last vestiges of summertime heat, incredible for Maine, and a rare treat for them. Bill had called up Mike to ask if he wanted to take a dip in the quarry, who had called up Eddie, who had called up Richie, who had called up Bev, who had called up Ben. None of them could reach Stan, so Eddie volunteered to swing by the synagogue on his way to the quarry to see if he could find him and convince him to come along.

Slowing down his bike as he passed, Stan had caught sight of him from the window and Eddie had thrown his arms out to beckon him outside. Stan had rolled his eyes, but still slipped outside to meet him.

 _Stan!_ Eddie called as he approached, words falling out of his mouth faster than he could control them in that way he sometimes had. _Where’ve you been? None of us could reach you. Shouldn’t service be over by now? Come to the quarry with us!_

 _I can’t today_ , Stan had said, _It’s Yom Kippur. We spend the whole day in synagogue for that._

 _Oh,_ Eddie said, brow furrowed. _Well what’s that mean? What for?_

 _It means Day of Atonement,_ Stan said, _There are five services. It’s a day spent in introspection, and we pray for forgiveness and seek atonement for our sins until nightfall._

 _Oh,_ Eddie had said, struck by the thought, _Okay. Well - sorry for interrupting, Stan._

 _It’s okay, Eddie,_ Stan responded, lips twitching. _I forgive you._

Eddie had grinned back at him, but just then Rabbi Uris stepped out of the front doors, eyebrows raised at where Stan and Eddie stood on the lawn. _Back inside Stanley,_ he’d said, and then _Hello, Edward. Stanley can’t come out to play today._

 _Stan explained_ , Eddie had been quick to say, _Sorry, sir. And uh - happy Yom Kippur._

 _G’mar Tov._ Rabbi Uris corrected, side of his mouth twitching up, looking just like Stan. Or, he supposed, it was Stan that looked just like Rabbi Uris.

 _G’mar Tov_. Eddie repeated carefully, smiling back. He had always liked Rabbi Uris, second only after Wentworth for the group’s fathers, and right there with Leroy Hanlon. He was strict and solemn, but not unfriendly and never harsh. Just quiet. Same as Stan. Certainly leagues better than the harsh violence of Alvin Marsh, or the quiet neglect of Zack Denbrough.

He waved both of them goodbye and kicked back off onto his bike, heading to the Barrens to give everybody the news.

And now here Eddie sits again, September in Derry, on the curb right across from where Rabbi Uris had strode out to greet them.

 _I’m_ _sorry that I wasn’t there Stan_ , Eddie thinks to the blue-faced Stan of his dreams, terrifically scarred and always so, so sad. _Back then or now. I promise I’m showing up this time. Just tell me how to find you and I swear I will._

Eddie tosses up the Turtle, catches it deftly in his right palm. 

♪ _Yeah, he was blinded by the light / Cut loose like a deuce, another runner in the night, / Blinded by the light / He got down, but be never got right / But he’s gonna make it out tonight_ ♪

It all makes such perfect, comedic, sickening sense that Eddie is shocked he hadn’t thought of it before. And him, the navigator. 

Belief works both ways. The thought hits him like a bolt of lightning. Richie’s devastated screams down there in the sewers as he was pulled away from Eddie’s body would have done nothing by themselves - except for that Eddie had believed so strongly that Richie would never leave him alone in the dark that even waking up in the river only lead him to the conclude that Richie’s absence must have meant that he was too hurt to have physically been there, hadn’t he? That something must have been stopping him.

No matter how many times they pace the Townhouse’s floors, Stan won’t come back. It will never be enough for the six of them to believe even with all of their hearts that they can find Stan - Stan, wherever he is, has to believe that he will be found.

And the one time that Stan had been more lost than ever before in his life, cut loose and wandering in the sewers, face bleeding and (they all suspected) caught by the Lights - who had found him, in the end? Who, in fact, was the only one to notice that he had gone missing at all?

If any of the Losers were ever lost, the one thing they could count on, _dollars to doughnuts!_ says Richie, was that Eddie Kaspbrak would find them. In a simpler world before all of the heartache and trauma of the summer of 1989, this had only meant that he was never picked to be it for Hide and Seek. After Neibolt, and Pennywise, and the sewers, when Eddie had found Stan and later taken their hands and led them all out of there and back into the sunlight, it had come to mean something more.

He’s suddenly stunned by the breadth of his failure to Stan, leaving Derry all those weeks ago. Repaying his belief with abandonment.

So where would the spectre of Stan reappear then, desperate and afraid, wanting so badly to be found and believing that if Eddie Kaspbrak couldn’t do it, nobody on earth could?

Eddie washed up in the river of the Barrens. Hadn’t they all been told, again and again, that anything that got swept up and away would inevitably wind up there? 

Stan will emerge in an out-of-the-way tunnel under the ground - someplace that only Eddie is able to locate, holding on to that precious memory of a child’s bone-aching relief in being found by his friends. 

Flip. ♪ _Baby, you’ve got it._ ♪ 

-🐢-

First thing’s first. Eddie has to clear a path down into the tunnels, and he’s got to do it before his friends find out that he’s gone and catch up with him - it’s going to be risky enough for his small frame to navigate such precarious conditions, let alone for six others to tag along.

Standing there in front of the Well House - or the wreckage of what once was the Well House - hits Eddie like a punch in the gut. He hadn’t even thought about the fact that he’d not seen it destroyed, having died down there in the sewers and reappeared out in the river when it was all already over. 

It may have given him a sense of peace, some sort of closure, if he wasn't about to dive right back in. But the hard truth is that it still scares him - a fact that pisses him off given how much progress he’d thought he’d made these past few weeks, all the hang-ups he felt he’d got past.

Eddie suddenly feels a pang of fondness for thirteen year-old Eddie, brave enough to walk past this house by himself, playing his little hand flute into his palm to calm his heart rate.

Eddie sticks a hand into his pocket, pulling out the Turtle and holding it in front of his eyes.

“Last chance,” he says. “Stan’s definitely down there?”

♪ _God have mercy on the man who doubts what he’s sure of_ ♪ the Turtle reprimands. 

“Damn.” Eddie says. “I was hoping you’d sing me a song about how I misinterpreted what you said and Stan was actually waiting patiently inside a nice quiet cafe.”

♪ _No retreat, baby, no surrender_ ♪ the Turtle says. ♪ _I’m going down, down, down, down_ ♪

-🐢-

His limbs ache. His _head_ aches. His hands are torn to shreds. But finally, Eddie has succeeded in clearing a path from outside, to what used to be the Well Room, and down underground. He’s lowered himself down carefully into the well for the third time in his life, and he’s making his way through a path lit only by his memory and a dying phone flashlight when he hears it.

_Back again Eddie? Did you miss me?_

“You’re fucking kidding me.” Eddie says, heart in his throat, but honestly - mostly enraged. “The clown’s not fucking _dead yet?_ Are all of my friends uselss or just fucking stupid? I swear to god, Stan and I have to do _every single fucking thing_ ourselves around here.”

_I’ll blow you for a dollar, kid. I’ll do it for a dime. Hey! I’ll do it for free._

“I’ll tear you a whole new asshole _for free_ if you even think of coming anywhere near, me, you fucking circus reject!” Eddie yells, whirling around to point his flashlight at every dark crevice around.

Nothing responds to him, and the air feels just a bit lighter as he continues walking. That is until he walks about fifty more paces and hears it again. 

_Eddie-bear! Eddie, don’t leave me down here. Eddie, have you taken your pills today? Have you taken your medication, Eddie-bear?_

“Have you taken your ‘be a normal mother’ pills, Ma?” Eddie responds tightly. “Or did you miss those again today, too, same as always?”

The air seems to grow thick with frustration, but whatever weak force is left of Pennywise doesn't have a chance to throw another apparition toward him before a familiar side-entrance becomes visible to Eddie, and his heart leaps because _that’s where he had found Stan before._

Eddie trips forward, prepared to find him and grab him, pull him out of here, but it’s not just Stan he finds.

It’s the flute lady. The one from Stan’s painting.

The warped face is turned 180 degrees like an owl at his entrance, and Eddie can make out the vague shape of an adult man hunched into a ball in the dark corner.

Tears spring to Eddie’s eyes - _that’s Stan!_ \- but he can't allow himself to break down, not yet. It’s clear that Stan needs his help, and Eddie does not ever intend to let him down again.

Eddie looks back into the face of the flute lady ( _No, Richie!_ Eddie agrees with thirteen year-old Stan, hysterically. _She’s not hot!)_.

He forces his gaze to become dispassionate. 

“I fucking hate woodwind instruments.” Eddie informs her. The warped face looks taken aback by his words, he notes with fierce satisfaction, and Eddie looks over at Stan with feigned casualty, expectant. “Don’t you Stan? Fucking worst musical family.”

Stanley’s head draws up, and he meets Eddie’s eyes with wonder for the first time in over twenty years. His edges seem to become clearer, more defined, the longer Eddie looks at him and Eddie wants to cry all over again at the surprise he sees there. He should have found him far sooner than this.

“Yeah,” Stan responds hoarsely, and even his disused voice, all creaks and rust, is the best thing that Eddie has ever heard in his life, which is the only reason he allows himself a brief second to go weak with the relief of it. “Now that you mention it, I do.”

“Like, flutes? Really?” Eddie says. “Damn. I owe Ben an apology. Maybe I _should_ have expected the likes of Snowball the newborn lamb.”

Stan’s mouth quirks at this and he seems to gain confidence from Eddie’s unapologetic scorn. “I don’t even know what was so scary about her all of these years,” he says, as if it hadn’t kept him stuck down here, cold to the bone in fear, for weeks and weeks. “A painting. Like, oh terrifying. Acrylics.” 

This startles Eddie, who begins to laugh. He laughs, and laughs, and laughs, and eventually Stan begins to laugh too, eyes bright and grin wide. Eddie leans forward to pull Stan up to his feet, and as soon as he’s standing the two of them are embracing one another so viciously that Eddie wouldn’t be surprised to look down to find his whole torso covered waist to neck with bruises when this is all over.

“ _Eddie_ ,” Stan says into his hair. “You found me. I always knew you would.”

Eddie shakes his head, stomach still sick with disappointment in himself. “No, Stan, I should have been here sooner, I should've found you right away.” 

Stan tugs at the tip of Eddie’s ear for this. “Stop it. I knew you’d find me and here you are. If Eddie Kaspbrak can’t find you, nobody can. It was a foregone conclusion.” 

Stan says this with such surety that Eddie takes a deep breath in and lets it all go. Stan is alive and he’s here with him. It may have taken time, far more time than it should have, but Eddie found him. All of the rest can just be gravy. 

The two of them break apart, still grinning at each other, and when they look around the corridor, the flute lady is gone. Even the foreboding air of the place has dissipated. It’s just a tunnel now. Just a dark, gross, tunnel, ready to be abandoned and never again revisited. 

Easy, in the end, aren’t they. Belief and love.

“Come on,” Eddie says to Stan, reaching out for his hand like they were children again, ready to lead his friends out of the sewers and into the sunlight. “Let’s get you home.”

-🐢-

When the two of them emerge from the wreckage of Neibolt once more, breathing heavy and standing right outside the gates, there is a tremendous _creak,_ a groan, and with a sudden _thump_ , whatever debris was left of the house collapses into dust.

The two of them watch its devastation with silent, beating hearts.

“I’m going to be honest, Eds,” Stan says, looking at the Well House lot impassively. “I really don’t think I’m going to make it all the way to the Townhouse. I’d love it if we could just - sit. For a minute. I don’t know if that’s unfair. I know they’re probably waiting for us somewhere.”

“Who cares about fair, I’m fucking _tired_.” Eddie says. “They’ll check here eventually. It’s someone else’s turn to find us for once.” 

And so him and Stan sit there, shoulder to shoulder, silhouetted against the final wreck of Neibolt, watching the sun set and waiting for their friends to find them. And Eddie’s head - it doesn’t even hurt. He thinks about the red balloon above his house in New York, about the creepening, lingering medicinal weaknesses, about how just enough of Pennywise was left to haunt him and Stan.

He has a feeling that he’s going to be just fine from now on.

“We’ve all met your wife, by the way.” Eddie tells him, after all of the explanations, the catching up of Stan on everything from the Turtle to washing up in the river to the multiple divorces. Stan had accepted all of this with remarkable grace, and Eddie is reminded once again why he and Richie always worked so well together. “We’ve all been talking to her. She’s lovely, fits right in with the group.” 

Stan’s face brightens, and he looks genuinely pleased by this, a rare enough look for him. “Yeah she’s - she’s really something. Best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Fucking sap.” Eddie grins. “Who would have thought that _Stanley Uris_ would be such a romantic, oh _Patty_ -”

“Big talk, Kaspbrak. Really big talk coming from you. You and Richie work out your shit yet?” Stan clearly thinks this will throw him for a loop, like it’s some grand trump card, but Eddie can’t even describe to him how prepared he is to talk about loving Richie.

“We’re getting there,” Eddie grins, thinking back on the last couple of weeks. “Bet you twenty dollars he finally kisses me once they find us.”

“Richie Tozier?” Stan asks skeptically. “The same Richie Tozier who told me about his undying love for you at the tender age of eleven and swore to make a move every month from that point onwards, and then never, ever did?”

“You underestimate him. I’ve been putting him through a lot.” Eddie grins, and then the realization dawns. “Wait a second, _that’s_ the big secret you two had all those years!”

Stan snorts. “Yeah, big surprise, you jealous bitch. Not only were all of Richie’s waking _thoughts_ about you, so were all his secrets.”

“Well that’s good to know.” Eddie says maturely. “Thank you for telling me.”

“It was sad, really,” Stan went on, head tilted thoughtfully to the side as they sat staring straight ahead. “He came over to my house once, crying because you didn’t want to come hang out with him. I told him it was probably just your mom keeping you locked up as usual, but he was all _No, Stanley, this is it. He’s finally realized what a lowly, unworthy miscreant I am._ And then he made me spoon him.”

A zing of displeasure shoots through Eddie’s chest, and he keeps his mouth shut instead of expressing whatever is going through his head, which is, of course, _it should have been me spooning him._

“Does that make you jealous?” Stan asks incredulously, and Eddie shoves at him, glaring balefully when Stan simply laughs and bumps right back up against him.

“Don’t worry. It wasn’t the loving embrace you’re imagining.” Stan says. “It was mostly snotty. Richie cried about how cute you were and I had to sit there like _Yes, Richie, I know he’s so cute. Yes, of course he’s the Miss America of cute boys._ _Yes, I too have dedicated hours of my life to cataloguing his freckles._ It sucked for me.”

“You’re such a jackass,” Eddie says fondly, head turned to look at him. “I don’t even know why I missed you.”

This makes Stan quiet.

“You really did, didn’t you.” he says, surprised.

What the fuck?

“Stan,” Eddie turns to face him more fully now, astonished. “Of course I did. We all did, it was like a piece was taken out of us. What are you even talking about?”

“Well, I don’t know!” Stan says defensively. “We’re all adults, now. And I didn’t even show up to help you guys. How was I supposed to know that you’d still care what happens to me?”

 _Do you think we’ll all still be friends? When we’re our parents' ages?_ Eddie hears. The possibility that had plagued Stan forever. He lets him have a moment before he responds.

“We’re all living in Richie’s house,” he informs him. “Like an episode of _Friends,_ but way more pathetic and clinical.” Stan snorts at this information, but seems to catch his point. 

“Wow.” is all he says. “What a cockblock for you. No wonder you guys haven’t figured yourselves out yet.”

Eddie is just about to respond when he sees five figures approaching on the horizon. Him and Stan both pull themselves up at this, hands helping each other to stand, and wait, bodies buzzing, for their friends to reach them.

Bill’s right eye is purple. 

That’s the first thing that Eddie notices when the five of their friends get close enough to see clearly, and remembering the circumstances under which he left, something tells him he knows exactly who put it there.

Stan lets out a weary sigh to his left, and Eddie’s just opening his mouth to ask about it, when he’s momentarily pushed off of his feet by the force of Richie barreling into him, one big, strong hand cupping at his face, and - and - and, _finally,_ a hot, desperate mouth pressed firmly into his. 

It takes less than a second for all of Eddie’s systems to come back online, and then he’s pressing forward to kiss Richie back just as hard, not leaving him hanging, chest filled helium-high with butterflies, and dizzy with relief. His toes curl, and so do his fingers, grasping tight and sure into Richie’s hair. It’s soft and fine, strands rasping across his fingers, and he gives it a gentle tug out of curiosity.

The force of Richie’s moan reverberates through his body, and he grins, teeth clacking into Richie’s, unable to contain his happiness. The kiss isn’t chaste, not by any stretch, but Eddie wouldn’t cheapen it by calling it dirty, either. Richie’s mouth opens under his, and it’s as if he suddenly needs Eddie’s breath in his lungs to survive. Eddie lets out an involuntary whine when Richie’s tongue darts out to slide along his bottom lip, causing him to stumble backwards - but this is Richie, and Richie would never let him fall.

The hand not grasping his face flashes out to catch Eddie around the waist, and Eddie _melts_ right into him. His hands rise up and now finally, _finally,_ he has an excuse to touch those shoulders, hands spreading along the long, powerful length of them. The kiss gradually winds down, after years and years, petering into soft, desperate kisses pressed again and again into his mouth, as if Richie would die if he were to stop. Eddie could live in this moment, easy, except that’s when he feels hot tears pressing into his cheeks, and he knows it’s not coming from him.

“Richie,” Eddie murmurs against his lips, fingers catching in the tangles of his stress-pulled curls. “Richie, sweetheart, what -”

“Thought I’d find you,” Richie gasps, pulling only far enough away that his words are still intelligible, lips still close enough to brush, “in the fucking _river._ You fucking _left_ Eddie, right after Bill said that stupid fucking thing about the pills, and none of us knew where you went. I thought I’d - I’d find you drowned, or something. For real this time.”

“Where’d you think you’d find me?” Stan asks, one eyebrow raised as he waits for his best friend to actually notice his presence. His voice pushes stubbornly through Richie’s fog-ridden brain, causing him to jerk and stumble, one shock to the system after another, but an arm kept around Eddie.

Stan catches him around the waist as he stumbles, laughing brightly at Richie’s lack of coordination, and now it’s the three of them, connected all in a row like a line of paper dolls. Richie stares at Stan’s grinning face, and it’s just like it was back at the Townhouse. For a brief second Eddie thinks Richie is going to start crying like he did back then, but Richie simply takes a deep breath and schools his features into a cool blankness, setting Stan a judgemental glare.

“Well Jesus Christ, Stan,” Richie says, shaking his head disappointedly. “Late to the party much? Didn’t you see the time on the invitation?”

“That’s offensive.” Stanley responds “I’ll give you the ‘late’ part, though.” 

The two of them stand there grinning at each other, and Richie lets out a loud whoop, releasing Eddie to grab Stan and lift him into a hug, swinging him around in circles while he laughs and whacks at him with his fists. Richie sets him down, and Stan throws an arm around his neck, pulling him down into another hug and whispering something into his ear.

They eventually part, Richie migrating back to Eddie’s arms with a kiss pressed against his mouth, and it hits them quite suddenly that they’re back together. Lucky seven. The air seems electric with it, and as Eddie fingers brush the stone-cold wood in his pocket, he knows that his job is complete.

Of course, that’s when a car pulls up beside them, so suddenly that they startle, and the tires screech as it grinds to a halt across from the wreckage of Neibolt. The headlights die down, and out of the car steps Mrs. Patty Blum-Uris. She’s sweet-looking and petite, but her face as she stalks towards them has them all taking a step backwards to leave Stan front and centre, more out of fear than thoughtfulness.

“Mike called me last night. And all of you,” Patty says, eyes never leaving Stan’s, “have a _lot_ of explaining to do.”

With this, she reaches up to grab her husband’s face and pull it down to meet hers. The rest of them wait in silence for a few minutes, until Richie (typically) has to break it.

“Damn,” he says, “Is this what Eds and I just made you all watch? Get it, Patty-cakes!”

“Quiet, Richard.” Patty says, breaking apart from Stan to wag a finger at him. Stan leans down to bury his head in her neck, and she strokes his hair softly. “You may have brought my husband back, but none of you are off the hook for not bringing me with you when you came back here.”

“Us?” Richie says, outraged. “Your husband was the one playing around in sewers in our freaky hometown while the rest of us were just trying to live our lives out in the world. That’s not _our_ fault.” (“And _I_ did most of the bringing back.” Eddie mutters mulishly.)

“Oh, I’m sorry, Trashmouth.” Stan says. “Did it inconvenience you, me being left down there by all of you, _again_?

“Oh yeah, assholes.” Eddie remembers. “That reminds me. Clown wasn’t all dead after all. Nice going, you _multiple fucknuts_.”

“The fuck do you mean the clown _wasn’t dead_?” Richie demands, head whipping down to stare at Eddie, cataloguing his non-existent injuries. “Are you telling me that It was down there with you and Stan, because -”

“Well, shadows of it.” Stan amended. “I was being held down there by the flute lady. Not sure what it was for Eddie.”

“The leper who offered me a blowjob back in 1989.” Eddie shrugs, and Richie chokes _the what_ , but he ignores this. “And my mom. It’s like Mike said, we all needed to be together to beat Pennywise, it was meant to take on all of us. And Stan and I weren't there for the final battle, so he never fully died.”

“You’re welcome.” Stan says pointedly. “Not that I’m hearing a lot of appreciation for Eddie and I solving all of the group’s problems, _as_ _usual_.”

Richie snorts.

“You live with this, Patty?” he asks, “Maybe Patty-cakes isn’t right. Maybe I should be calling you St. Patty’s, instead.”

“Richie, _no._ ” Patty says, doubling over with laughter. “That makes me sound like a leprechaun!”

And that’s when it strikes them all that despite the explanation she’d gotten from the lot of them back when they’d first got back from Derry, being confronted unexpectedly with all of this may make it all just a bit much to take in. 

“I’m sorry, Patty, if this sounds crazy.” Bev says gently. “We should’ve thought - this all must be very confusing for you.”

But Patty had simply been watching their conversation with polite interest.

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you.” Patty says. “But you know, I actually think that all of this explains a lot.”

Stan grins at her, pulling her against his side, and the eight of them burst into laughter, making their way to pile together into Patty’s car, seven members throwing a preemptive _Beep fucking Beep Trashmouth_ at Richie before he can even think about cracking a clown car joke. As they walk, Eddie sees Stan whisper something into Patty’s ear, and she hands him her wallet with a grin. Right as Eddie bends down to clamber into the backseat, he feels the slight pressure of what he knows is Stan pressing a $20 bill into his back pocket. He laughs out loud.

“Are you groping my fucking man right in front of me, Stanley?” Richie demands. Eddie’s heart lurches. _My man._ He likes that.

“No, I am not _groping your man_ Richard, for fuck’s sake.” Stan sighs. “Why you even talk…”

-🐢-

The eight of them come whirling dizzily into the Townhouse, Richie nearly doubled over with laughter as Patty recounted the story of how she and Stan had met years ago at a college party, Stan drunk out of his mind and slurring bird facts to anyone willing to listen.

Stan is complaining loudly and passionately over top of them about how the worst part about coming back to life is witnessing the budding friendship between Richie and his wife, but Eddie can see the joy behind his eyes.

They’re all now settled across the sitting room once again, Ben and Bev cuddled up on a couch, Bill and Mike characteristically sprawled across the floor, heads together, while Stan’s lies curled up in Patty’s arms, and Eddie is seated comfortably on Richie’s lap. 

“So, back to mine tomorrow then?” Richie asks, hand running up and down Eddie’s side, unknowingly setting off sparks that he can feel deep in his abdomen ready to catch fire. Eddie pushes closer to Richie, nose subtly nudging at his throat.

“For a bit, anyway.” Bev responds. “Ben and I have been thinking about finding our own place close by to you and Bill lately, but we’ll happily continue to mooch off of you until then. You and Eddie will have the place all to yourselves, soon.”

“Oh,” Richie says, “right.”

His mouth turns down just the slightest bit, clearly caught between disappointment at his friends leaving and the possibilities rife in having a house all to himself and Eddie.

Eddie darts up to press a kiss to the downward turn of his mouth, and Richie smothers a grin in his hair. It’s for this reason that Richie misses the significant look exchanged between Stan and Patty.

“That’s a shame,” Patty says now, a false frown spreading across her face. “Because Stan and I will probably be needing somewhere to stay while we make the move.”

“The move?” Eddie asks, eyebrows raised, and Richie’s breath catches in his throat.

“To L.A.” Stan clarifies, a smile widening on his face. “I think Georgia can do without us.” 

“If you’re lying to me Stanley -” Richie threatens, but his excitement is already threatening to overflow, body like a shaken pop bottle just about ready to explode. Stan just grins wider, and Richie lets out a whoop, sublimating his desire to bound over to Stan with a tighter grip around Eddie’s waist. The sparks catch fire.

The rest of their friends hasten to congratulate Stan and Patty on their move, excitement at all being permanently in the same place once again filling the room, but Eddie can’t concentrate on it.

Taking the opportunity while everyone else is distracted, he grinds down subtly on Richie’s lap, twisting to put his mouth up to his ear.

 _This_ catches Richie’s attention finally, and his eyes when they flick down to meet his are wide and black, surprised. Eddie smirks, bringing one hand up to stroke at Richie’s chest, the other turning his head to the side so he can better access his neck.

“Richie,” he whispers, hot breath fanning Richie’s ear. “Can you - I want you to take me to bed.”

Richie nearly comes undone from these words alone, soft groan forming deep in his chest. Eddie had thought Richie’s grip on his hips were strong before - but it’s nothing to the way they clutch now, fingers digging deep into his skin, crescents forming there that almost make him whine _._ Christ.

Some part of Eddie shouts that he should care about the fact that they’re in a room full of their closest friends, but a larger part of him is just so happy and relieved and _free,_ and all he wants is Richie on him, as close and as soon as possible, to let him know how much he loves him, loves him, loves him.

“Eds,” Richie murmurs, eyes loving but unsure where they study Eddie’s own, what must seem to him like a very sudden shift in mood. “Eddie baby, you’ve gotta stop, man. This is - honey, you’re killing me. We can wait.”

“Please, Rich?” Eddie whispers back, “I’m sure, if that’s what you’re worried about. I love you. I want your hands on me.”

At this, Richie groans and a hand comes up to fist in his hair and draw Eddie’s mouth to his, hot and wet and close close _close_. Eddie melts and surges simultaneously, hands crossing behind Richie’s neck to keep him from drawing away. 

“Oh my _god_ ,” Eddie hears from behind him. “Please just take him upstairs already, Richie. For all of our sakes.”

Eddie snorts while Richie throws up a middle finger behind his back. 

“Holy hell,” Bev marvels. “They've gotten worse. I didn’t know it could be done.”

And all of their friends laugh, but Eddie can’t really find it in himself to care.

“Roger that, commander.” Richie responds, and what he does next nearly has Eddie coming undone.

Hands spread out under his ass, Richie pulls Eddie up along with him, drawing his legs criss-cross behind his back to carry him out of the room. He throws a salute at their friends as they go, and he hears Stan’s sigh and Bev’s hoot at the same time. 

The fact that nobody actually seems to work at the Derry Townhouse is actually quite an unsettling thought, if you stop and think about it, which is why Eddie had always tried his best not to. Not that it’s not been helpful - for the Losers in particular, this has only ever proven to be a blessing in disguise given the nature of their visits, and the havoc it would no doubt have wreaked if there had been an employee there to witness them in the midst of their many catastrophes. 

But for the first time in his life, this unsettling absence is coming through for Eddie specifically, because as soon as Richie staggers the both of them out of the room, Eddie decides that it would be a great time to pull at Richie’s hair and attach his lips to Richie’s neck, sucking and biting.

Richie swears at this and slams him up against the front desk, pulling his head up so that their lips meet again, concierge bell clattering to the floor.

“ _Farther away than one goddamn room!_ ” Stan shouts from the open doorway, and it’s Eddie’s turn to stick out a middle finger at him as Richie pulls him back up with a curse and walks them up the stairs. 

Once outside their room, Eddie unspools his legs from Richie’s back, hopping down lightly but bringing Richie’s face down with him so that they’re never disconnected. His body slams into the door, doorknob digging into the small of his back, and Eddie pulls back laughing so that Richie can actually get the door open. He’s so full up with love and happiness, he feels like a champagne glass, bubbly and bright and just about to spill over. 

They walk backwards together into the room, Eddie falling onto the bed and Richie’s body coming down to cover him instantly. They kiss for awhile, just like that, until Eddie reaches up to pluck at the nape of Richie’s neck, demanding his shirt come up and off, and Eddie moans at the sight of his bare chest, all broad shoulders and padded chest and stomach.

Richie grins bright and quick at this reaction, hands coming up to tear Eddie’s own off.

His shirt now out of the way, Richie’s fingers come down to trace across the line of Eddie’s healed scar reverently, his eyes turning soft and lovely, with just a hint of remembered grief.

Eddie leans up to press a hard kiss at his forehead, and tugs at his hair once for good measure just to recentre him, but also so that their eyes can meet and Richie can see just how safe and accounted for he is right now. How present.

Mission accomplished, Richie nods once and ducks back down to Eddie's chest, drawing his left nipple into his mouth, other hand coming up to pinch at the right, and Eddie gets a front-row seat to the rippling muscles of Richie’s back and shoulders.

“ _God,_ ” Eddie moans, “your fucking _shoulders_ , sweetheart. Love how big you are, want you to be holding me all the fucking time, those strong fucking arms.” 

“Oh, do you?” Richie says, mouth popping off, lips wet. Eddie's eyes are drawn to that bright spot like a magnet. His eyes are gleaming, but Eddie can see his mouth wobbling almost imperceptibly at the rare pet name. “ _Very_ interesting. What happened to ‘ _I’m average height, asshole!’_ and ‘ _Get your gigantic body away from me Richard, I’m trying to carry the fucking groceries in.’”_

“What _happened_ was that that gigantic body wasn’t fucking me at the time.” Eddie says waspishly, wiggling his hips so that Richie will get on with it. Instead, Richie slithers back up his body to mouth at the spot behind Eddie’s ear, and his whole body shivers at the touch.

“Oh, is that what’s happening, bossy boots?” Richie murmurs to him, laughing mouth turning up as he catalogues Eddie’s reaction to this spot being paid attention. “I’m fucking you?”

“Could be if you’d just fucking g- get’ _n_ with it, already.” Eddie tries, eyelids fluttering as he tries to think past the thick fog in his brain at Richie’s mouth on his ear.

“My wish is your command, baby.” Richie laughs, pulling away to finally dispense with both of their respective pants and boxers, but his voice as he says that isn’t nearly as joking as he’d probably intended. The two of them here, bodies pressed together, sweat and saliva and soft sheets in, on, and around them, the vulnerability is as clear as day on Richie’s face. He doesn’t hide anything here, not from Eddie.

The thought settles warm and syrupy into his stomach, and Eddie looks at him searchingly, propped up on his elbows, and when it hits him, his grin is a cat’s and he lets out a long “ _Ohhh._ Oh, I see how it is.”

“What?” Richie says, nonplussed, his hands busy scrounging around for a bottle of lube that Eddie makes a note to ask why he brought with him to fucking _Derry._ “How is it? What do you see?”

But now it’s Eddie’s turn to lie smug and teasing in the sheets, arms reaching up to grab Richie around the neck and pull him down so that he can speak his findings directly into his ear. 

“I think,” Eddie says, “that you _like_ it when I tell you what to do. Don’t you, sweetheart?”

And there’s another thing. Richie is big on pet names - anyone could tell you that. Give him five seconds and you’ll have your very own Tozier Original, and god knows the man can hardly get two sentences out to Eddie without throwing one in there, _Eddie-baby, honey, sweetheart, Spaghetti Man, Eds, darling, my love,_ even before they had officially gotten together, telling enough on its own.

But it’s clear that hardly anybody has ever taken the time to do the same with _him,_ evidenced now by the blooming flush of red in his cheeks, and the glassiness of his eyes when Eddie does.

His man. 

Eddie’s grin grows as Richie squirms in his grip, hips thrusting unconsciously against him, and he grips a tight fist into Richie’s hair as he says to him, “Alright, I can work with that. Get the lube out, sweetheart. I want you to open me up.”

Richie all but sobs out loud at this, fingers scrambling away to locate the bottle of lube and get it onto his hands. He stops a second to warm up before he brings it down to Eddie, and Eddie kisses him soft and sweet on the arch of his eyebrow. Richie is careful and gentle as he goes, thick fingers pressing _deliciously_ deep and full into Eddie’s hole. Eddie’s head is thrown back, his neck already littered with hickies, and he can’t stand it, feeling so good with no relief, no end in sight.

“Richie,” he slurs out after long, long minutes of this, fingers grasping the sheets, bunches of linen twisted tight in his fists. “ ‘m ready. Want you to fuck me, come _on._ ”

“You sure, baby?” Richie asks, fingers driving up. Eddie’s torso twists and he pulls up a hand to slap at Richie’s chest.

“ _Yes_ ,” he gasps out. “Get in me already, you fucking dick.”

Richie laughs and throws his hands up in a surrender position. “Alright, alright, slow your roll. Just want to make sure you’re comfortable.” 

He takes out the bottle again, pouring some of it onto his hands before reaching to spread it up and down onto his hard cock. His cock which - Eddie hadn’t yet seen, okay, distracted as he’s been, but maybe that’s a good thing because _lord,_ is it big. Or at least - proportional to the rest of him, which already means big enough.

Richie tracks his wide-eyed gaze down, and grins at him, all teeth, and Eddie refuses to give voice to his thoughts. Richie doesn’t need the ego-boost, and besides that he knows he’ll be gentle. Grabbing a couple tissues off of the bedside table, Richie thoughtfully wipes the excess lube off of his hand before reaching down to cup Eddie’s face once more.

“Ready, baby?” he murmurs, eyes searching Eddie’s. Eddie simply locks his legs around Richie’s waist, pulling at him impatiently, and Richie laughs again. This is one of his favourite things about sex with Richie, Eddie is discovering. You’re allowed to _laugh,_ to have fun together. It doesn’t have to be something that scares him, something so serious and solemn. God. Why doesn’t everybody fall in love with their best friend?

Richie pushes the head of his cock slowly into Eddie, pausing when his face screws up to rub soothing circles onto his stomach, always waiting for his signal before pushing forward again. After what seems like centuries, Richie gives one last small push forward, and then he’s in Eddie completely. 

Eddie tears up. Richie notices this immediately. 

“Baby, are you alright? Is it too much? I can pull out if -”

“ _No,”_ Eddie shakes his head, “No it’s just. _God_ , it’s so stupid - do _not_ laugh at me - I just… can’t believe we’re here. I’ve been in love with you forever, and I just never really thought I’d be allowed to have this and it’s just. So much. I’m sorry.”

Richie’s eyes well up at this, a hiccuping sob punching out from his chest as he twines their fingers together and leans down to rub Eddie’s nose with his own.

“God, _no,_ don’t be sorry Eddie baby, it’s me too. Me too, I’ve been stupid over you my whole life, ever since I first saw you, five years old. I can’t remember a time when I _wasn’t_ in love with you. You’re all that’s in my head, Eddie, every day. You have no idea.”

“Think I do,” Eddie says, giving a wet laugh at his rambling. “Now come on. Want you to fuck me for real.” Then, a lightbulb coming to life in his head, leaning forward, and whispering in Richie’s ear: “Want you to make _love_ to me, sweetheart.”

Richie moans low and long, fingers slotted between Eddie’s own and tightening their grip before he obeys, thrusting hard into Eddie. Eddie moans at this new feeling, eyes rolling back into his head, and he struggles to bring his mind down to earth far enough to make this good for Richie, too, as Richie continues to thrust into him.

“So good for me, sweetheart, so good.” Eddie moans. “Love your cock, love _you,_ so much, you feel so good inside of me.” Richie whimpers, face coming down to hide in the crook of Eddie’s neck, their hands still held slotted together tight stretched above Eddie’s head beside the pillows.

Eddie’s body jolts with every push of Richie into his body, his own cock slapping wet and loud against his stomach. They fuck just like that, hard and close, desperation to not be separated from each other so strong that Richie is barely pulling out before he’s shoving back inside with a cry each time, face pressed into Eddie’s neck.

“I love you,” Richie gasps senselessly, hips stuttering where they smack against Eddie. “I love you Eddie, love you so much, you’re all I think about.”

Eddie tears one hand out of Richie’s grip beside his head to cup his face, their sweat mingling together, and answers the call, “Love you too Richie, sweetheart, I love you. _My_ man.”

Richie’s arms are beginning to shake, a motion that travels through their joined hands to Eddie’s whole body, and his voice is shaking and overwhelmed when he tells Eddie, “Eds, baby, ‘m so close, not gonna last, it’s too good.”

“You gonna come for me, sweet thing? Hm?” Eddie murmurs, mouth pressing behind Richie’s ear as his hips drive hard and fast into him, again and again. “My sweet thing aren’t you? So good for me honey, you’re s-so good. Want you to let go for me, come on. Love you so much.”

Richie’s hips drive into him once - twice - three more times before stuttering out a shaky rhythm and coming with a high gasp of Eddie’s name. Eddie shoves a hand down to reach for his own cock, but Richie bats it gently out of the way and grips it tight in his fist, stroking up and down, and Eddie’s back arches off the bed, coming with a high-pitched whine, still feeling the twitches of Richie’s aftershock deep in his body.

“Rich,’ Eddie murmurs, stroking his sweaty hair. “Richie.”

Richie pushes up to press a forceful kiss to Eddie’s mouth, pulling back only enough to murmur, “Love you, baby.”

The two of them kiss until they can’t anymore, lying slumped against each other like that, and Eddie dozes off, waking to find Richie swiping a warm, wet washcloth through the mess on his body. He pulls Richie’s face down to his, pressing sweet kisses to his mouth again, continuing even as he begins to drop off, pausing to yawn against Richie’s mouth.

Richie huffs out a fond laugh. “Go to sleep, baby.” he says, lying down to curl up around Eddie, pulling him back tightly against his chest. “I’ll be here when you wake.”

“Mmkay,” Eddie mumbles, eyes drooping. “Love you Rich.”

“Love you too, Eddie.” is the last thing he hears before falling asleep for good, a firm kiss dropped in the centre of his forehead sending him off to sleep.

-🐢-

For the first time in his life, Eddie Kaspbrak is standing above the Kenduskeag river, and he’s not imagining it rising up to swallow him whole.

He wasn’t quite right when he thought that as a child, but neither was his mother right when she told him that rivers weren’t alive and couldn’t have any thoughts on what they might want to do with him. The Kenduskeag of his hometown lies somewhere in between these two half-truths, in the end no more or less haunted than any other feature of anyone’s childhood home. 

Richie had taken him here after the others had set off for the airport, Bev, Ben, Mike, and Bill bound for Los Angeles, and Stan and Patty briefly to Georgia before making their way to California. Him and Richie are taking the long way back again, just the two of them this time on the open road, and Eddie is looking forward to not having to hold back the urge to kiss Richie’s dumb face when he sings off-key, or lie wrapped together in a motel bed, too drunk on the feel of Richie’s skin to worry about any potential germs. 

The two of them are standing now on the Kissing Bridge, Eddie leaning over the top to watch the rushing of the river, and Richie kneeling somewhere down by his hips to search for something that Eddie doesn’t know. He’s willing to be patient, though. There’s something here that Eddie has to show Richie, too.

“Here, Eds.” he finally hears Richie call, kneeling somewhere down to his left, and Eddie takes one last look over at the water before tapping once at the top rung, and pushing off to join Richie on the ground. He kneels down, following Richie’s fingers to where they’re tracing two old letters, carved into the wood decades and decades ago. 

R + E

Eddie’s breath catches in his throat. 

“Richie.” he says, “When did you -”

“That summer.” Richie says, finger still tracing the letters. “When we were thirteen and I was just full to the gills, stupid in love with you. Couldn’t contain it in my sappy little teenage body. Had to put it down somewhere.”

He flashes a grin over at Eddie, probably waiting for the ribbing to begin, but Eddie’s head is filled with white noise suddenly, and he has to get Richie to his feet _right_ _now_. 

Eddie stands up, tugging Richie’s hand up with him (“Eds - what’re you -”), and pulls him over to where another carving rests, barely two feet away from the other one. 

“Richie,” he says, “I - me too. When we were thirteen. Look.” Richie’s eyes slowly fall to where another carving rests, a wonky little off-balance heart with a capital R displayed proudly in the centre.”

“Eds,” Richie says, voice choked, eyes welling with tears. “Eddie.” He drops his head into his hands and the laugh he lets out is watery. Eddie reaches up to pull Richie’s wrists away from his eyes, dropping a kiss to each eyelid. 

“Guess we both had stupid sappy little teenage bodies.” Eddie says, grinning. Richie’s forehead _thunks_ down to rest against his, and the two of them stand there for a moment, breathing in each other’s air and stealing glances at the wood of the bridge before something else strikes Eddie.

He reaches into his pocket to grab the cold Turtle, placing it in the palm of his hand to compare. 

It’s the same wood. 

It all makes sense suddenly, Eddie coming back to life with a Turtle in his pocket, borne in equal parts from the river that held him and the bridge which held Richie’s love for him and Eddie’s love for Richie, speaking to him in the voice of a man that Richie had used to press _play_ on over and over, to promise him that they’d make it out of here someday, together.

Just like they finally will today.

A sensation that Eddie hasn’t felt since standing inside the ruins of the Well House flashes through him, gentle heat burning into the skin of his palm. 

♪ _Your strength was devastating in the face of all these odds,_ the Turtle says to him, pride and love suffusing every syllable. _Remember how I kept you waiting when it was my turn to be the god?_ ♪

“What the fuck?” Richie says, mouth falling open and face whipping around to look around him. “ _I_ heard that. Is that what you’ve been hearing this entire time? It’s fucking unsettling.”

The Turtle turns cold now, and Eddie slips it into his pocket.

Eddie doesn’t respond to Richie’s questions, simply drawing their clasped hands up to his mouth, and pressing his lips to the back of Richie’s fingers, smiling at the soft look sent his way. The man who believed him without any proof, who didn’t need to hear the voice himself to be behind him all the way. Who opened his heart and his home to Eddie, back then and again now. His man. 

The two of them walk together, hand in hand, back to the rental car that will take them out of Derry for good, across state lines and highways, through forests and open air until they reach Richie’s house. The home that they now share, together, that will host Stan and Patty soon, but even after they’re gone will have Eddie and Richie, and the love they share together.

Maybe they could get a dog.

 _So Richie, climb in_ , Eddie thinks smilingly, pulling open the passenger side door and seating himself in the front. _It's a town full of Losers and we’re pulling out of here to win._

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> :~)


End file.
